One of my favorite foods to eat is liver and onions. As a boy growing up, each fall our family would butcher a steer for meat for the next year. Mom and Dad always asked the butcher to save the liver for our family. We would usually have liver and onions for two or three meals after that. Mom would usually cook macaroni and cheese that she served with the liver.
One of the things I like about liver and onions is the smell of the liver and onions while it is cooking. Fried liver has a distinctive smell. Couple that smell with fried onions and some bacon and you have a very yummy smell. When people ask me about my favorite food, I always say "liver and onions."
My first memory of eating liver and onions comes from Aunt Geneal and Uncle AC Stadtmueller. But to tell you that story, I have to tell you another story.
On the ranch, we had a beaver problem. The beavers would build dams along Miller Creek and build little ponds. To assist with irrigation of the upper hay fields, we had a reservoir on the ranch just below (or east) of the Idaho state line. The beavers also liked to put mud and sticks around the culvert pipe that allowed the water to run out of the reservoir. When I was quite young, 4 to 8 years old or so, Uncle AC would come to the ranch and set beaver traps. One day after he came by to check the beaver traps, he stopped in the yard on his way home. He had a beaver in the back of his white pickup. We all went out to see it.
Now, back to my original story.
When I was 5 or 6, Mom and Dad went on a trip. They left Cade, Cory, and me to stay at Aunt Geneal's house. (NOTE: This was after they moved to their new house down the lane instead of the house in town on the highway.) When we had dinner that night, there was a food that I did not recognize. When I asked what it was, Uncle AC told us that it was beaver tail. It turns out it was liver and onions. I do not remember if I liked liver that particular day. After all, I was a picky eater (see my story about breakfast sausage).
Maybe it was because we did not eat liver that often, I looked forward to the times when Dad would butcher a steer or "hamburger cow" because that meant we would get to have liver and onions for dinner.
When we lived in Tallahassee, one of my friends learned that I liked liver and onions. He took me to lunch on my birthday one year to a restaurant that served all you can eat liver and onions as an entrée.
Most year's when Annette asks me what I would like to eat for my birthday dinner, I tell her that I want liver and onions. None of my children appreciate this dinner. Most of them smother the liver pieces they eat in either ketchup or mustard. They also usually only eat a few small bites.
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