The Culinary Experience at Omi’s House
We lost a very special woman on April 15, 2017. This is a brief recollection of some of my favorite moments with Omi.
A bit of context.
We have a lot of amazing cooks in our family. Between Pam, my mom and my wife, people rarely go hungry.
Now, Omi wasn’t necessarily considered one of these chefs in the traditional sense.
Her expertise lived in the middle of this delightful culinary venn diagram of classic americana and the frozen food section.
After School Special
Megan, Lisa and I all used Omi and Opi’s address to illegally and irrationally attend Milpitas High School.
While we didn’t officially live at their house, we did spend quite a bit of time there on most weeknights. We all played sports and our routine was to go to school, go to practice, and Omi would either come pick us up or we would catch a ride over her house while we waited for a ride back to San Jose.
Even after we got our drivers licenses, we would still head over there after school most days for some hanging out and an after practice snack.
These are truly some of my favorite memories with Omi.
When it came to the after school snack, Megan was always the sensible one.
She might have a pack of fruit snacks, but she understood the principle that most reasonable people understand, which was that she would be eating dinner at her own house in about 45 minutes and probably didn’t need a 700 calorie appetizer.
This was not my philosophy.
Lisa was more old school. She was unapologetic about her love of pickles which were of course always in stock. But when it came down to it, her literal bread and butter was the classic grilled cheese. This was an Omi staple. Two pieces of wheat bread with butter caked on all four sides with just the right amount of cheese. It was glistening.
It was spectacular.
I used to go grilled cheese. And who would blame me? Omi’s grilled cheeses were second to none.
I would still dabble from time to time in the later years but I discovered two things along my journey of life that would change things for me. The first was something that many people have mentioned here this morning, and that is that if Omi knows you loved something, she always had it for us at the ready. She loved to take care of us.
The other thing I discovered was waffles were not limited to breakfast hours.
You could have waffles any time you wanted.
The Essence of the Eggo Waffle
When Megan and I would arrive at Omi and Opi’s house there was generally a conversation about our day, upcoming games or meets, dates to school dances and whatever else was going on. Maybe it wasn’t always the first question, but certainly within the first 5 minutes Omi would ask me the simple question, 2 or 4, what’ll it be? Meaning, 2 or 4 eggo waffles.
My answer was almost always 4. Even though Megan and I were heading to the same house. For the same dinner. In the same 40 or so minutes.
Nothing particularly special about these Homestyle Eggo waffles. The butter was the same liberal use of the butter used on the aforementioned grilled cheese. It took a few reps to coach Omi up a little on not being afraid to burn those bad boys because everything is better with a little crisp.
Once you heard the pop of the toaster, you knew you were moments away but perfection could not be rushed.
And this was truly the secret.
A few minutes earlier she had taken out the log cabin syrup from the fridge and squeezed it into a pot on the stove to heat it to just the right temperature. Once she lathered the butter and syrup, there was one final step and I’m not proud of this part.
Omi cut up the waffles for me.
This was admittedly cute in the early years. Once I got up to 13–14 years old, I started to get the eye rolls from my dad, but I didn’t care. It was part of the experience. Late high school, her cutting up waffles for me was truly getting sad and embarrassing for my family. Until I finally powered through to the age where it became endearing again.
Neither of us cared about the teasing because it was our thing. Just like how she would always steal a bite or two before she let me know they were ready to go.
Each bite melted in your mouth. The perfect mix of savory and sweet.
Omi never minded.
I bragged about her and her waffles to all my friends. We would never have wanted to keep Omi to ourselves. She had to be shared.
We’d invite friends over for waffles and sports talk with Omi. We’d talk NCAA tournament, we’d get pissed at Bochy for batting Randy Winn 3rd against a lefty even though he was batting under .200 right handed.
She always got frustrated with the Niners for going into the prevent defense late in games because she knew, “The prevent defense will prevent you from winning.”
She saved extra copies of the Milpitas Post anytime our names were mentioned. We’d defend Alex Smith together and recap the weekly Steve Young interview on KNBR. Even though she was there from the beginning and saw all of Joe Montana’s glory and titles, she was always loved Steve a little more.
These are my favorite moments. Everyone probably had their own version of waffles with Omi.
Omi loved and cared for each person in her life and found a way to connect with each of us.
We’re going to miss her. We’re all so lucky to have had her in our lives.
