Like Boppa, like grandson

My father served as Bishop when I was a teenager. One of the initiatives he implemented with the youth and young singles was the Malt Meeting. Every Sunday evening (excepting the first and fifth Sundays), either the young women, the young men, or the young single adults would come over for an informal fireside where they could ask any question that was on their mind. All this took place while they ate malts of every flavor made by my mother, hence the meeting's name and my mother's sainthood.

Of every flavor. You could have the vanilla flavors such as, well, vanilla, obviously, but also chocolate, caramel, butterscotch, and strawberry. You could blend different flavors (chocolate-caramel worked pretty well, chocolate-strawberry not so much. The clever ones picked chocolate-vanilla) as well as add toppings such as crushed Oreos and marshmallows. Beyond that, if you could imagine it, you could have it provided the ingredients were in the house. If they weren't, you knew they would be next time.

I don't remember the details, but somehow the Bishop's fondness for ketchup became public knowledge. It wasn't long after that the young men challenged him to have a ketchup malt. I had never seen my mom laugh while making malts, before, but until that night I had also never seen a grown man wince while eating ice cream.
I share this as a cautionary tale for Caleb. This morning he insisted on having ketchup on his blueberry muffin. Thirty to forty years from now, if he's not careful, he may wind up trying muscle a spoonful of ketchup malt past his gag reflex.

mw