Stir Fry

published September 2, 2010

in the Stockton Sentinel, 

Stockton, Kansas

While stir-frying some chicken teriyaki for Sunday dinner, I was remembering the first time our family was introduced to stir fry. We and our then-young sons were invited to my great-aunts' home in Hutchinson for a meal. These never-married sisters, my dad's aunts, lived together nearly all their lives. They were the coolest ladies who had traveled all over the world, and they always brought back some really neat stuff as souvenirs. I used to tell them they were the living definition of "great" in "great-aunt." But the older they got, the more eccentric they got. They probably planned the menu for our dinner together, and then I'm sure they each contributed an equal dollar amount to the grocery buying. Their refrigerator had an imaginary line down the center; each sister kept her own groceries in her respective half. Fortunately they were crafty enough to figure out how to prepare dinner on a shared budget.

I remember that when I saw what they were fixing and the many different kinds of veggies they were chopping up to toss into the frying pan, I went to the living room where our boys, probably about 3 and 8 at the time, were playing with some of the world bazaar toys that the aunts had brought back from some far-off land. I remember telling them quietly that they might not like all the stuff we were going to have for supper, but they could pick out the things they liked and just push to the side anything they didn't care for. I told them they had to try it and not complain, and if they were polite and didn't say anything rude about dinner, we would stop at McDonald's when we left to get them something to eat. (Veggie Tales had yet to be invented, and my boys were definitely NOT veggie-lovers!) Anyway, our boys must have been good because I don't remember anything else, but I'm sure I was held to the promise of stopping at McDonald's before leaving Hutch. Kids don't let you forget something like that. 

As we begin a new school year, I would draw this comparison:  There's a lot of stuff mixed in a stir fry, some of which you like, some maybe not so much. Generally, there is some sort of meat. Some things are added just for color; other things are added to make it spicy or tangy. Some things are tender, others are just downright crunchy, and it's usually held together in a real sweet sauce.

A school year is a little like stir fry. The new school year will provide an array of "ingredients." Some things you may like better than others. Perhaps you will slide some things off to the side. But if you truly give it a try, you just might experience a sweet blend of something you never before imagined.