Returning home one afternoon, I came into the kitchen and noticed an unfamiliar enameled pan full of something that looked a little curdled and pinkish, with plastic wrap stretched over it, and a recipe card next to it in Midge Welldon’s familiar hand. Midge liked giving me recipes, bless her, and this one for Rinktumdiddy together with servings for two, was merely the latest in a long line. We lost Midge this winter, and with her countless stories of her girlhood summering on Islesboro, accounts of a professional life in education, and clips from her recipe file.

I have personal food memories from and about Midge to treasure, including one about my own kitchen. When Midge was a little girl, she and her chums used to go visiting up and down the road from her grandfather’s house in North Islesboro, the very next one up-island past ours within easy walking distance, where she and Burke retired years ago. She recalled stopping in at various houses, where some of the ladies would invite the girls in for a little treat. Aunt Annie Bunker, who lived in our house, was one. Midge recalled drinking tea and eating cookies, not homemade ones but special store-bought sorts, though Midge was fuzzy on exactly which kind. Aunt Annie sat the girls down in our kitchen for their little tea, before sending them on their way to mooch another treat further down the road.

Midge liked to cook, as her mother did before her. Her mom was famous for her Parker House Rolls, and when there was an event, fair or supper at the Up-Island Church her mom was expected to bring them.

Shortly after I arrived on-island, Midge and Burke invited me for a drink late one afternoon. Burke mixed up the specialty of the house, Whiskey Sours, and we sat in the living room – though on all subsequent visits we stayed in the kitchen. We must have had at least two drinks each, maybe three. Unaccustomed as I was (still am) to hefty doses of Southern Comfort, I staggered home on foot with a decidedly favorable opinion of the Welldons, which held up even under stone-cold sobriety.

When the Welldons celebrated their 55th anniversary 11 years ago, Midge asked me if I would cook a dinner for them and their guests, a small circle of close friends and family. Midge knew exactly what she wanted and exactly which recipes I was to use. I recall only two dishes, a baked stuffed chicken breast dish, and a pasta salad. The salad stands out because it was my choice of pasta and I used penne and raddiatore. The combination of long ridged pasta and a round ruffled one seemed then (and still does) particularly attractive and certainly more interesting than only one shape.

The chicken dish was entirely new to me and I recall it because it took a lot longer to bake than I expected it would. I fretted the whole half an hour longer that the chicken took to cook. The Welldons, who planned to eat at six, didn’t seem to notice that dinner showed up late. There was a good deal of audible hilarity on the other side of the kitchen door but I was beside myself.

Rinktumdiddy came up in a conversation with Midge about dishes with silly names like Shrimp Wiggle and Welsh Rabbit. Midge didn’t know why it had that name, and neither do I. Her family seem to have made it up. I have a vague recollection of a melted cheese dish with tomatoes under the name Pink Bunny, and another old cookbook of mine has something called Flub Dub that combines melted cheese and a can of tomato soup. Goodness knows what it is about sloppy cheese and tomato that brings out the goofy in us.

Midge served Rinktumdiddy on toast or crackers, (Crown Pilots, right?). It is suitable for a light supper of the sort people used to eat back when their main meal was dinner at noon.

 

 

Marjorie Welldon’s Rinktumdiddy

 

2 heaping cups of grated cheese

butter the size of an egg (4 tablespoons)

2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce

¼  [one quarter] teaspoon baking soda

1 fourteen and a half ounce can tomatoes, drained, about 1 ½ [one-half] cups

1 well beaten egg

salt to taste

paprika to taste

Crackers or toast.

Put the cheese and butter into the top of a double boiler. Melt them together. Add the Worcestershire sauce, tomatoes and soda, and whisk together. Add the beaten egg last and whisk until it is fairly smooth, then add the salt and paprika, adjusting the seasonings to your taste.

 

Sandy Oliver cooks and writes on Islesboro.