Uncle Timmy's Rochester Plate

My mother's brother Timothy lived in Rochester, New York. Everybody called him Timmy, even when he was well into his sixties. I don't think I ever heard anybody call him Timothy except my mother, and usually that meant he'd done something.

I loved going to Uncle Timmy's house. He lived by himself in a little house with a screened-in porch, a television that was always on, and a refrigerator that seemed to contain more beer than groceries.

He said it was because beer kept longer than lettuce.

I never thought to question that.

Uncle Timmy was a very cheerful man. He had a laugh that started somewhere deep in his belly and usually ended with him coughing into a handkerchief. He was always happy to see me, and he'd give me a big hug before asking whether I was hungry.

I was usually hungry.

He also had a little trouble walking.

Sometimes he'd get up from his chair and take a few steps sideways before heading in the direction he'd originally intended. He'd catch himself on the kitchen counter and laugh about his bad knees.

I believed him because my grandmother had bad knees too, although hers didn't seem to affect her quite the same way.

My mother used to tell him he ought to drink more water.

He'd hold up his glass and say, "There's plenty of water in this."

I thought that was pretty clever.

Anyway, the best part about visiting Uncle Timmy was dinner.

He didn't make dinner the way my mother did. At our house, dinner had a main dish, a vegetable, and sometimes a potato. Everything had its own place on the plate.

Uncle Timmy didn't believe in that sort of arrangement.

He'd start with a big paper plate and put a scoop of macaroni salad on one side. Then he'd pile home fries on the other. Sometimes the potatoes were a little darker than they were supposed to be because he'd gotten distracted by the television.

Then he'd put a hamburger on top.

And a hot dog.

Both of them.

I remember the first time I saw him do that. I thought he'd forgotten there were two of us eating.

"Uncle Timmy," I said, "you put a hot dog on my hamburger."

"I know," he said.

"Am I supposed to eat both?"

"That's generally the idea."

Then he'd throw on some chopped onions, squeeze yellow mustard over everything, and get out a container of meat hot sauce from the refrigerator.

Now, I knew about the hot sauce. My mother made it at home from a recipe she'd clipped out of a Rochester newspaper. We always had it on hot dogs.

But I'd never seen anybody put it on macaroni salad before.

He'd spoon it right over the hamburger, hot dog, potatoes, and macaroni salad.

By the time he was finished, you couldn't tell where one thing ended and another began.

"There you go, Randy. A Garbage Plate."

I thought that was a terrible name for something you were supposed to eat. It was the only time I heard anybody call it that while I was growing up. Uncle Timmy wasn’t much for what other people called things.

But I took a bite.

And it was wonderful.

I don't know how to explain it. The hot potatoes and cold macaroni salad shouldn't have gone together. The hamburger and hot dog seemed like two different dinners. The mustard got into everything, and the hot sauce tied it all together somehow.

It was magic.

I asked Uncle Timmy how he'd thought of putting all those things together.

He said he hadn't. People in Rochester had been eating them for years.

I thought Rochester must be a very interesting place.

Uncle Timmy always made a plate for himself too, although sometimes he'd forget about it and leave it sitting on the table while he went to get another drink.

He had a special glass he kept in the freezer. I asked him once why he didn't just put his milk in there.

He laughed so hard he had to sit down.

I still don't know what was funny about that.

After dinner we'd watch television together. Uncle Timmy liked baseball, old westerns, and game shows. He was especially good at guessing the prices of things, although sometimes he'd shout an answer that had nothing to do with the question.

He'd usually fall asleep in his chair before the evening news.

I remember one time my mother came to pick me up and found him asleep with the television on.

She looked at him, then looked at me.

"Has your uncle been drinking?"

I told her he'd had something with dinner, but I didn't think he'd spilled any.

She didn't say anything for a moment.

Then she told me to get my coat.

Adults could be difficult to understand.

Uncle Timmy passed away a few years ago.

I hadn't seen him nearly as much as I should have in those last years. He'd gotten older, and eventually he stopped having people over very often.

But when I think about him, I don't remember any of that first.

I remember his little kitchen, the baseball game on television, and the sound of him laughing at something that wasn't particularly funny.

I remember standing beside him while he put an unreasonable amount of food on a paper plate.

And I remember how happy he was to see me.

I've since learned that the name Garbage Plate belongs to a restaurant in Rochester called Nick Tahou's, where they've been making them since before I was born. It's the same restaurant mentioned in my mother's old hot sauce clipping.

So I call mine a Rochester Plate.

Uncle Timmy would have called that fussy.

I've been making my own version for a while now. I use my homemade macaroni salad, home fries, a hamburger, a hot dog, chopped onions, yellow mustard, and the Rochester meat hot sauce I learned from my mother.

I still don't understand why all of it tastes so good together.

But it does.

And every time I make one, I think of Uncle Timmy.

I usually make mine a little smaller than he did.

Although I don't think he'd approve of that.