Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

You are here: Home / Archives for tv dinners

tv dinners

“Frozen Dinners” Described as Poetic, Heartbreaking, and Tense

By

Ambrose Trucking, 1952

Foreword Reviews published a recent national review of the memoir Frozen Dinners – a Memoir of a Fractured Family and provided new insight into the book.

“Illustrative prose brings the anecdotes to life, describing the Idaho landscape and muddy potato farms with poetic imagery.”

“…a heartbreaking memoir.”

“Elaine Ambrose’s tense memoir, Frozen Dinners … paints a complex portrait of a twentieth-century western family.”

The memoir is receiving 5-Star Reviews from online sites including Amazon Reviews and Goodreads. Here is one 5-Star Review:

Elaine Ambrose is a skilled humorist, but also a trained journalist, an essayist and experienced poet. I was eager to see how she would bring her voice to the complicated story of her family. The book is full of vivid descriptions of Idaho’s natural beauty, small-town family life, and the way that agriculture defines culture in towns and cities across our great nation.

The book has the precision of Elaine’s journalistic background mixed with the prose of a poet. It’s beautiful, but I think some readers may miss the artistry of this juxtaposition. If you allow yourself to fall into the story, you will be cheering on the Ambrose family, and shaking your head (or fist) as the story unfolds. Never one to back away from the difficult, Elaine lays bare the emotional and physical pain of her childhood as the only daughter of a wildly successful (and very frugal) businessman and his loving wife. The emotional chill of the home is matched by Elaine’s brisk prose, which relaxes into lush descriptions when Elaine-as-a-girl is alone and in nature while her brothers spend time with their father. Little Elaine grows up, and the story of the family’s fracture when the children become adults unfolds from there.

Read this for a glimpse into Idaho’s beautiful landscape, into lives well-lived, one family’s rise through smarts and grit and sweat and determination. Read it because it’s a great American story.”

The book is available in paperback and eBook format. Order from local bookstores or online.

Celebrate “Frozen Dinners” with Warm Food, Cool Jazz, and Sizzling Friends

By

Please join the celebration on November 8 at the premiere party for Frozen Dinners – A Memoir of a Fractured Family.

Register Here.

Bestselling author Elaine Ambrose departs from her award-winning humor to describe her childhood in the village of Wendell, Idaho. Her father, an intense entrepreneur, created a trucking company in 1952 to haul frozen food throughout the Northwest. His businesses grew into a multi-million-dollar empire. After his untimely death, his survivors imploded in a maelstrom of brutal courtroom drama, heartbreak, and dementia. The $20 million-dollar estate is all gone, and Elaine’s parents and younger brother have died. In this new memoir, Ambrose chronicles her 50-year-search for warmth beyond the family legacy of frozen dinners.

Guest options include autographed books, glasses of Telaya wine, delicious “Grazing Table” food provided by Wild Plum Catering, custom cedar bookmarks, live music, free prizes, and a short reading. Additional books by the author will be available for purchase for holiday and Christmas gifting.

Popular singer and songwriter Dan Costello will provide a musical feast of sass and sound.

Ambrose Trucking, 1952

Frozen Dinners is published by Brown Books Publishing Group of Dallas, Texas. For information about Elaine’s books, blogs, and events, see ElaineAmbrose.com.

Full of luscious details, clear-eyed compassion, and enduring joy, Ambrose’s memoir gives us an insider’s view of one family’s rocky pursuit of the American Dream. Even when she is relating personal stories of conflict, loss, and grief, Ambrose does so with a survivor’s voice made strong by experience, stubbornness, humor, and love.

— Kim Barnes, Author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Memoir: In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country

This tell-all memoir will resonate with anyone who has endured family 
dysfunction and will defrost the hearts of readers everywhere.
—Joely Fisher, actress, singer, and author of Growing Up Fisher

Elaine will read and sign books at Rediscovered Books on Thursday, November 29 in downtown Boise. Elaine is available locally for sales, signings, and holiday cheer.

“I received my last spanking when I was thirteen years old.”

By

 

My memoir Frozen Dinners will be released next month and is available for pre-order. Here are some excerpts from the book.

I received my last spanking when I was thirteen years old. I had said something sarcastic to my father, so he dragged me into my bedroom and spanked me a few times on my rear. The rage and humiliation caused me to start a five-year-calendar to mark off the months until I was eighteen. Being hit by my father distorted my concept of a healthy relationship. A few years after I left home, the man I was with hit me hard enough to split my lip and knock me to the ground. My father was only thirty minutes away, but I didn’t call him because I didn’t want him to know.

Ambrose Trucking, 1952

I envisioned my childhood while eating frozen dinners on disposable aluminum trays that provided exact portions of mixed vegetables, a meat concoction, manufactured potatoes, and bland apple crisp or a meek cherry cobbler. I saw my father, the stern, successful workaholic who built a trucking empire hauling frozen food and TV dinners throughout the Northwest. My mother dutifully heated and handed the aluminum trays to her children, and we ate in silence. As a stubborn girl, I defied the orderly presentation and pushed the wrinkled peas into the potatoes and plopped the dessert onto the meat. It all tasted the same, anyway. As we consumed our meal, I wondered how it would be to live in a place of warmth, peace, and laughter. I longed for a hearty homemade meal shared with a happy family, so I made it my mission to have that scenario.

My mother believed the biblical scripture that there was a time for everything, but she never anticipated going to court at age seventy-seven because of a lawsuit with her firstborn child. Her shoulders sagged as we approached the door, and I moved my arm around her. She seemed fragile and frightened, and I feared she would float away. The courthouse smelled of old wood and wax. We noted the schedule of trials, and Mom cringed when she read the notice: Plaintiff, Leona Ambrose. Defendant, Tom Ambrose, Sand Springs Ranch. The lawyer for the plaintiff was Richard C. Boardman from Perkins Coie in Boise. I was listed as the counter-defendant because my brother sued me in response to my mother’s suit against him

 

Here, on the hill near the potato field, I rejoiced in the splendor of my existence. That’s when I felt it. A calm sensation poured over me, stirred my very soul, and quietly released through unrestricted tears flowing down my cheeks. Through my blurred vision, I knew that this warm feeling was the peace I had read about in my grandmother’s Bible. And it was a peace that passed all understanding.

I finally understand why my mother, even in dementia, was so desperate to find her quilt. The patchwork pieces of our past are reminders of the frayed, personal fabric of our lives, but they also offer comforting, familiar proof of the happiness that occurred and the enduring strength necessary to hold it all together.

 

The Premiere Party for Frozen Dinners – A Memoir of a Fractured Family will be Thursday, November 8 at Telaya Winery in Garden City, Idaho. Other books will be available for holiday and Christmas gifts. Laughter will outweigh any sadness.

Please Pass the Potatoes and Poetry

By

My upcoming memoir Frozen Dinners contains a chapter titled “Potatoes and Poetry.” The manuscript chronicles how I spent my childhood days on a potato farm near the village of Wendell, Idaho and wrote poetry and short stories after chores were finished. My first national poetry publication came when I was 12 and in junior high school.

That poem titled “Endless River,” written on the banks of the Snake River, is one of eight poems in the memoir. Now I cringe at the novice pace and irregular rhythm, but I didn’t change the poem for the book. Subsequent poems were written using techniques with iambic tetrameter, rhyme schemes, free verse, or sonnets after my English teachers taught me about meter, rhythm, and rhyme. They also encouraged me to read poets Emily Dickinson, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Robert Frost, and Walt Whitman.

I continued to write poetry and short stories through high school and college. Noting the job market wasn’t too favorable for poets, I entered a rewarding career in journalism. Now that I’m mostly retired, I intend to write more poetry.

Preliminary cover for hardcover book “Frozen Dinners” – Colors will vary

My memoir is a departure from my humorous books, including Midlife Happy Hour and Midlife Cabernet, and I was hesitant to include the poems. But, I decided to take a chance and include eight. Here are three of the poems in the book.

I wrote this poem in memory of my twin sister who never breathed.

Solitary Sibling
In the mysterious void of initial creation
I shared my mother’s womb
with a growing mass of defective development.
She came first and was promptly discarded.
I emerged yelling and the doctor was elated
at my ten fingers and ten toes.
I was worth keeping.
Now free and independent,
I avoid darkness and cramped quarters.
Still, I acknowledge my first companion
and wonder if the heartbeat I remember
was my mother’s or hers.
Did I feel my sister’s soul evaporate
as she lost her humanity?
Or did I absorb her essence?
That would explain my ambivalent beliefs
and excuse my sporadic loneliness.

This poem describes the year I rode my bike on a daily newspaper route.

1964 Town Crier
Ragged, rhythmic clouds of breath escape from my mouth
as I push my burdened bicycle over the patches of frozen snow.
Frost fills my nostrils and hardens wayward hair
poking beneath my knit hat like spikes of rigid spider legs.
The only sounds on this dark moonless morning
come from the rustle of my frozen pant legs
and my boots squeaking and crunching through the crusty layers.
I know every house on my paper route,
so I keep my head down in a futile attempt to ignore the bitter
winds that slice through my coat.
Take a newspaper from the bag, slap it into a roll,
stick it into the can, keep going.
I’m 12 years old, and I’m outside in the brutal
Idaho winter at 5:30 am to deliver 70 newspapers.
Every day. By myself.
My fingers hurt. Snot freezes on my lip.
A dog growls but doesn’t leave its shelter. Crunch. Breathe.
My bag becomes lighter as a sliver of daylight
emerges through the dark.
I arrive home, and my father sits to read the newspaper
while my mother hands me hot cocoa with marshmallows
happily bobbing and melting on top.
My aching hands circle the mug, and I lean over
so the steam can warm my face.
Silent tears roll down red cheeks.
I am the Messenger. I am the Town Crier.

This poem, written in iambic tetrameter and an ABAB rhyme scheme, won a poetry writing contest from Writers Digest.

Idaho Farm Girl
This vibrant land yields ample crops
and cradles coffins of the dead,
expanding to the mountain tops
and plunging to the canyon bed,

still clings to me on muddy feet
and tempts me not to leave so fast.
This family dirt is bittersweet;
the dust to dust of ages past.

With scratch of hoe on stubborn weed,
and boots on trails in search of space,
this sun-burned girl, the scattered seed,
returns to claim my resting place.

Three of the seven stories in my children’s book Gators & Taters are written in rhyming poetry. Still back on the farm, the first story involves a truck driver named Wendell who hauls two alligators named Cleo and Clyde. They love Idaho potatoes. Gratuitous plug: Gators & Taters won a writing award for Children’s Literature in the 2018 Independent Press Awards Competition.

Frozen Dinners – A Memoir of a Fractured Family will be released by Brown Books Publishing Group in November. The book is available for presale, and the premiere party is scheduled for November 8 at Telaya Wine Company in Garden City. The eBook version also will be available in November.

Editorial Reviews are Positive for “Frozen Dinners” Memoir

By

Frozen Dinners – A Memoir of a Fractured Family is available for pre-order. The hardcover book and eBook will be available in November. The publisher is Brown Books Publishing of Dallas, Texas.

Here is the publisher’s summary of the book.

After World War II, the United States evolved economically through an explosive combination of opportunities, entrepreneurs, and growing industries. By 1954, families began to enjoy the new pastime of evening television and increased the demand for a new product known as frozen TV dinners. A poor father and farmer from Wendell, Idaho had the audacity and vision to start his own trucking company to haul and deliver frozen food across the country and subsequently built an impressive fortune that included several successful businesses. Elaine Ambrose, a bestselling author, departs from her award-winning humor to show life as this man’s daughter. She chronicles the struggles her family experienced under the strain of an absent father and describes the high tensions and familial rivalries that arose after his untimely death. Using actual courtroom transcripts, she tells of the brutal courtroom drama that propelled her mother into dementia. She hopes to offer hope and inspiration to others who endured a contaminated family story to prove that anyone may grow beyond painful memories and find success, happiness, and warmth for themselves

Ambrose Trucking, 1952

The editorial reviews are positive. Here are two:

“Full of luscious details, clear-eyed compassion, and enduring joy, Ambrose’s memoir gives us an insider’s view of one family’s rocky pursuit of the American Dream. Even when she is relating personal stories of conflict, loss, and grief, Ambrose does so with a survivor’s voice made strong by experience, stubbornness, humor, and love.”

—Kim Barnes
Author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Memoir: In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country

“Elaine Ambrose and I share the need to write as a tangible expression of life’s milestones. This tell-all memoir, Frozen Dinners, will resonate with anyone who has endured family dysfunction and will defrost the hearts of readers everywhere.”

—Joely Fisher, actress,singer, and author of Growing Up Fisher

Ambrose Trucking, 1954

 

A premiere party and book signing event will be in Boise in November. Details to be announced.

Memoir Reviewed by Acclaimed Idaho Author

By

 

My memoir Frozen Dinners is available on Amazon for pre-order. Brown Books Publishing has announced a release date for November 2018 to secure holiday promotion and purchases. Watch for the local premiere party, complete with TV dinners!

I appreciate this review from Kim Barnes, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Memoir: In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country

“Full of luscious details, clear-eyed compassion, and enduring joy, Ambrose’s memoir gives us an insider’s view of one family’s rocky pursuit of the American Dream. Even when she is relating personal stories of conflict, loss, and grief, Ambrose does so with a survivor’s voice made strong by experience, stubbornness, humor, and love.”

.

I worked on the manuscript for 20 years. My mother’s death in 2014, followed last year by the death of my younger brother George, convinced me to complete the book. The memoir tells the story of my father Neal Ambrose, born in Wendell, Idaho, as he climbed out of poverty and created an extensive fortune through trucking and farming enterprises. In the early 1950s, he established one of the first trucking companies in the country to haul frozen TV dinners, and during the 1960s, his farming operations introduced the first pivot sprinklers in southern Idaho. The pivots allow sprinkler pipes to rotate around a center pump to water crops.

However, the family lived in a state of emotional paralysis, and after my father’s death, everything was destroyed as the assets were squandered, the companies closed, and hundreds of employees lost their jobs. A chapter titled “Judgement Day” describes a brutal courtroom scene where a ruthless Boise attorney badgered my 77-year-old mother until she wet her pants. Another chapter devoted to her is titled “The Book of Leona.” The memoir concludes with my half-century journey to find warmth beyond the contaminated legacy of frozen dinners.

While ripping open the scars to write the book, I covered the wounds with healing humor and wrote Menopause Sucks, Midlife Cabernet, and Midlife Happy Hour.  I’m eager to return to writing humor.

Click this link for pre-ordering details about the hard cover edition: Frozen Dinners