NO CHEF

 

Once, long ago, when shopping in a cavernous new grocery store on the other side of town, I had an infant and a toddler corralled (barely) within a full cart of groceries. The baby was "hangry", so he was wailing away in his carseat plunked in the cart. The toddler was in the child seat thing in the cart, reaching for and grabbing everything he could from the shelves, sending me scrambling to pick up after him or pry some random "treasure" (like a bar of soap or whatever) from his clenched little fist, resulting in a screaming tantrum.  

Grocery shopping on a good day is one of my least favorite activities.  On that day, I'd had enough.  Two-thirds of the way through the store (and my list) I parked the cart of groceries in the middle of the aisle, grabbed the carseat, took the hand of the red-faced toddler, and exited the store.  I couldn't take it one more minute.  This past Monday was sort of like that.  Only it was just me, no kids, but I was still in a state of "I hate this!" mommy-frustration confusion.  

Hub has been working for years with groups addressing climate change.  He is an integral part of one group that meets 1-4 hours weekly on Zoom, organizes and presents at forums and educational events, lobbies for prioritizing climate-related content to their organization's curriculum, co-facilitates several 9-week courses on adaptation and resilience in the face of climate collapse (with strategies for making it all less awful.)  This all takes a great deal of his time and energy and untold hours at the computer.

On top of that, of course, there is life at home:  me (I can be a handful), maintenance of our home and our gardens/property, occasionally seeing friends/family...you know, life stuff.  He is great at keeping all the balls in the air, but he pays a price and eventually feels the stress of it all.  In September he was particularly busy and the stress was boiling over.  I asked what I could do to be supportive.

He has been our family shopper and executive chef for a long time.  I've been his sous chef.  I'm a pretty good chopper and prepper; I am not a great cook.  I don't like it. When those squalling kids were young I did all the shopping and cooking, but over the years I phased myself out and Hub took over, especially once the kids were out and he was retired.  I thought he liked to shop but he recently told me he really doesn't like it, but neither does he dread it, which is an improvement over my feelings about the chore, but still. He does enjoy cooking but the every day grind of it gets old.  (I know.)  So, to be more helpful, I offered to take on the shopping and cooking indefinitely.  Yikes!

I have a list of every dinner since my start date on September 23rd.  I keep this list as an "attagirl" I give myself every time I look at it.  I feel a sense of accomplishment.  Maybe even a bit of pride.  I've not made anything fancy -- I'm not foodie gourmet.  But I've hauled out some old cookbooks and done Google searches for various things.  I've made entirely edible, even tasty dishes that we've both enjoyed.  I have not hated it.  But there is that daily grind.

On Monday I didn't have time to create my menus for the coming week, but I had to get some things from the store, so I went with a list of a few staples, and a few speciality items for two cookbook recipes. Unfortunately, I hadn't done a good inventory and didn't have a meal planned for every day.  I am a grab and go shopper, and I am NOT an intuitive cook, so I found myself without a recipe to buy for and with no desire/ability to create meals based on what I found at the store, so I found myself frustrated, going up and down aisles with no clue what I needed or wanted, and ended up with a cart of random items that seemed paltry but also ended up costing nearly $100 somehow.  

I went to the self-check. (I know I'm supposed to boycott that, but if the other line is forever long, I don't boycott it because I just want to get out of the damn store!)  I fumbled around with looking up produce items, weighing them, scanning the unscannable bar codes, putting up with the machine yelling at me to put my items in the bag when they were already in the damn bag, and then got reprimanded for trying to buy non-alcohol beer for Hub (it's store policy) with an expired license, that wasn't really expired but the DMV had punched a hole in it when I went in to renew it, making it void.  I was supposed to have brought some print out of a temporary license with me.  Duh.  By the time I got out of there I was near tears.  But I pulled up my big girl panties and headed to Costco for the items I needed there.  I survived, barely.

When I got home, Hub was sympathetic and appreciative.  Maybe 8 weeks is my limit; maybe it's about as "indefinitely" as I get when it comes to shopping and cooking.  We discussed a plan to share the burden. It might even be fun, we thought, to shop and cook together!  (Cooking maybe; shopping definitely not.  We have extremely different shopping styles.  As noted, I'm grab and go for just what I need in the moment.  Hub is the complete opposite -- he's price and compare, distracted by impulse buys, and likes to "stock up".)

So I'm not sure how the new plan will go.  I do know that it won't really be implemented for awhile, because Hub still has a lot on his plate. (HAHA  Good one!)  Maybe it will be a New Year intention.  Until then I'll keep my dinner list going to motivate me and I'll try super hard not to freak out in the grocery store.  I'd hate to start throwing canned goods.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  somewhere on the internet..sorry, don't know; don't sue me. 🙏🏽

GENETICALLY INCAPABLE OF COOKING

I was getting seriously worried about myself yesterday morning.  First, I was having a little teeny tiny anxiety issue rear it's familiar, yet fearsome head, which throws me off-kilter, so right off the top I'm gonna blame it on that.

On the other hand, Hub and I had recently had a long discussion about whether we wanted to open the "closed" door on our "23 and Me" genetic testing results -- the door which holds the information on whether one has a genetic predisposition for late-onset Alzheimer's and/or Parkinson's disease.  You can find out, but they don't make it easy.  You definitely have to "opt in" at least 3 times to see the result.  "Are you sure?  Are you really sure?  Are you super-duper really and truly sure?  Do you have a genetic counselor and mental health professional standing by?"    So maybe I was already primed for feeling that every lapse of memory was likely the beginning stages of the slippery slide into dementia territory, even though I don't have my results yet.

Anyway, as is my new habit I got up, dressed, headed to the kitchen and put a pan of 4 cups of water on to boil with 1-1/2 teaspoons of Indian spices thrown in to make a "detox tea".  I'm following a Ayurvedic cleanse regimen that promises to cure every ailment I have and then some, plus encourages weight to fall off effortlessly.  I'm 10 days into Phase 1.  No weight loss yet.  But maybe I'm just impatient.  The entire process can take 2-4 months to complete, depending on how quickly one moves through each of the four phases.

So the ritual I've adopted is to boil the water for my tea, let it simmer and steep, then strain it into a bowl, dumping the seeds, leaves, and detritus of the spices down the sink before filling a large thermos to sip all day.  

The first pan of tea boiled nearly dry as I put it on and forgot about it while I sat at my desk in another room, scrolling through Facebook.  I dumped that out and started over.  

I set a timer for the second pan of tea, turned off the heat, remembered I had to strain it, so turned to the sink and dumped the entire batch through the stainer and down the drain.  I'd forgotten to capture it in the glass bowl.  On to the third attempt.

That one was successful, but by then I was feeling rather sheepish about it taking three tries to make a batch of tea that is so easy to do I fully believe my three year old granddaughter could master it if she was allowed to be near the stove.

At dinnertime I successfully sauted some veggies, baked a piece of Mahi Mahi, and steamed some Jasmine rice -- which I also forgot and it sort of burned/stuck to the pan, but was not ruined, so Yay Me!

I have a few talents, but kitchen wizardry isn't one of them.  Based on the day's fiascoes it seems I have the most problem with cooking foods in boiling water.  I wonder if that's a genetic trait that will be revealed in my "23 and Me" test result?   I've definitely decided not to open the scary door -- missing the cooking gene is startling enough for now.

At least, that's the view from here...©

KITCHEN SECRETS ALA VEGAS

Do you remember those old tourism ads for Las Vegas where they encourage all manner of bad behavior by saying "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"?  You are about to read a similar story, minus the chorus girls.

I used to cook all the time when my boys were little.  I was a stay-at-home mom and kept my family well-fed.  But somewhere along the way I lost interest, time, and talent.  Hub does most of our cooking.  I'm good at heating things up that come in containers from Costco.  Also I'm good at ordering in restaurants.

But today I made a pot of soup -- a recipe shared by a BFF who is a wonderful and creative cook.  Since the list of ingredient wasn't too long and I already had most of them I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I mean, it's only soup, right?  Here goes:

Hungarian Mushroom Soup.

I decided to double the recipe.  If I was going to all the fuss, I wanted it to last awhile.   First you chop up a bunch of onion.  I eyed the under-utilized food processor I bought at some point thinking it would make me a better cook, but I decided it was too much of a pain to assemble so I commenced to chopping the old-school way -- by hand, with a big knife.  Pretty satisfying except for the tears.  I started to sauté for 5 minutes while chopping the mushrooms.  But first you have to clean them and that takes while so I turned off the heat on the onions.

About 30 years ago I was told you have to peel mushrooms to get them really clean, so that's what I've mostly done all these years, keeping my family safe from forest dirt and wild animal poops.  But noting the two pound container on my kitchen counter, I decided to Google cleaning mushrooms and guess what???  You don't have to peel them!  You can clean them with a wet paper towel, a mushroom brush (advanced kitchen gadgetry), or use the "rinse and shake" method.  I started out with the paper towel and did about ten of them, but could tell I'd go through a whole roll of paper towels and it would take about half my remaining lifetime to do the job, so I defaulted to the rinse and shake and had a pile of clean mushrooms in no time.  I sliced them.  Very satisfying.  What is it about the texture of a baby Portabello?

I was ready to sauté the mushrooms, but remembered I had not finished sautéing the onions, so I did that then threw the mushrooms in with the onions to cook.

As I watched the mushrooms sautéing, suddenly it seemed like there weren't enough onions in there.  Oops, forgot to double the onions.  So I chopped some more, sautéed them separately and then threw them in with the mushrooms and first batch of onions.  This part seemed to be taking forever, so as they mixed and mingled, I decided to get started on making that fancy roué.

Butter, flour, milk.  How hard can that be, right?  Well, turns out it's a little tricky and takes, like, forever to get a nice creamy mixture.  I didn't have quite enough milk, so I added Half 'n Half because in my book you can't go wrong with additional milk fat.  Many, many minutes later I had a passable roué to add to the onions and mushrooms, so I dumped it in feeling very happy with my effort.  But the soup wasn't very soupy and seemed to be of lesser quantity that I'd expected.  Plus, when was I supposed to put those spices and flavorings in that I'd hunted through my cabinets for?

Oh shit!  I forgot to actually make the soup stock part!  BEFORE adding the roué I was supposed to add chicken broth and spices/flavorings and simmer all that for 15 minutes.  Hmmm….

There was nothing to be done now but to just add it all in after the roué.  So I dumped in the chicken broth and grabbed the dill weed and measured out double the amount in the recipe and dumped it in.  Wow, that looked like a lot of dill!  Double-checking the recipe revealed that it wasn't tablespoons, but teaspoons!  That is so easy to miss, isn't it?  But I figured when all was said and done the doubled teaspoon amount was about equal to the doubled tablespoon amount I'd dumped in.  No harm, no foul.  In with the rest of the spices, (soy sauce, salt, pepper, paprika), but skipping the optional anchovy paste -- not stocked in my paltry pantry.  Then I was to simmer the whole thing, but for how long? I'd already messed up the simmer schedule of 15 minutes before roué and 15 minutes after.  Decided to wing it.

I turned the heat to low and waited.  And waited.  How long does it take to get a big pot of soup up to simmer?  All day????  I kicked the heat up a notch.  Waited.  OK, maybe a bit more heat?  Up a notch more.  Then I thought,  "I'll just take a moment to see if the mail is here, while I am waiting for the soup to simmer."  It was!  I stood in the living room, thumbing through Yoga Journal when I remembered the soup.  It had only been a few minutes, but it was at a rolling boil!  Yikes!  Well, a few minutes of boiling likely equals 15 minutes of simmering, I thought.  Turned off the heat.

I tasted the soup and in spite of the cook it's pretty yummy, if a bit on the dilly side.  I'm just going to rename it Hungarian Paprika-Dill Soup.

Really, I shouldn't wander too close to the stove, but when I do, what I say is: "What happens in my kitchen, stays in my kitchen."

At least, that's the view from here... ©

TIME FLIES AND IT'S THANKSGIVING

Hoo-Boy.  I'm suffering a pretty good case of writer's block this month!  I can't believe I haven't written even one blog post until now.  But in fairness to me, I think I've fallen into a Black Hole where time is running at a pace much accelerated than is typical.  (Does that happen in Black Holes?  I don't really have the science down on that, but you get my drift.)  How in the world did it get to be November 19th?  And what happened to October?   At breakfast with a BFF yesterday we agreed that the days seem to fly by in some strange otherworld zone where it's even hard to recall what we did from day to day.  I noticed this happening more and more after I retired just over 4 years ago -- there were no real "markers" for the passing days -- they all sort of look alike in that I get to plan and organize them at my own pace and with activities of my own choosing.  But my friend still works and even she is having trouble hanging on to a sense of order and any ability to "slow" things down enough to understand that a new month is over half gone.  I feel like I'm in a Time Machine traveling at warp speed.

So, anyway, looking at my calendar, I see that (Wow! Already!)  next week is Thanksgiving.  We had our weekly family dinner last night and DIL offered to bring her fabulous homemade pies again this year -- salted carmel apple and pumpkin cheesecake.  I so appreciate that -- one less thing to buy at Costco.  (What?  Me bake???  Nah….)

I'm really a hopeless cook.  I've probably written about this before, but every Thanksgiving I'm reminded how stressful cooking is for me.  Of course everyone knows this by now and to avoid my meltdowns (there have even been tears!) for several years I've had lots of help -- well, let's be honest.  I'm not sure anyone is "helping" me anymore, since so many parts of the meal have been taken on by others.  Typically Hub does the turkey and gravy; Son-Two does the mashed potatoes; I do the stuffing and candied yams and cranberry/orange sauce; someone gets some veggies going (green bean casserole and/or brussel sprouts); I get the rolls in the oven.  Everyone helps dish things up and carry food to the table.  Somehow it all gets done pretty much on time and we sit to eat together in gratitude for my mom -- from whose recipes the entire meal emanates.

I think about my mom every year.  She didn't like cooking either, yet every Thanksgiving or Christmas (she and her sister traded hosting the holidays) she would shop, prep, and cook the entire extravaganza all by herself.  No one pitched in.  She didn't ask for (or demand) any help, seeing it as her job.  And it was all finished on time, all hot to the table, all served on her "good" china on a beautifully set table.  I'm sort of in awe of that.  That's a true talent, if you ask me.

Living so far from our extended families, for years our Thanksgiving was just the four of us -- Hub, me and our kids.  Then Son-One started to bring his girlfriend and her daughter, who his now our lovely DIL and our little Angel.  Next year we will have a new family member when our new granddaughter will be at the table in her high chair.   I like the tradition of family gathering for Thanksgiving.  I love the tradition of everyone helping with the meal.

At least, that's the view from here…. ©

REAL MEN EAT RED MEAT

Father's Day has come and gone.   The family gathered.  The sun shone.  Angel played in the sprinklers.  Future DIL and I talked about wedding plans.  Hub and the boys drank a variety pack of craft beers, comparing hops or whatever.  The boys did not compare gift-giving plans and each gave Hub a new golf cap.  Then we grilled and sat down to dinner.  Pretty traditional Dad's Day.

But wait...I may have made a terrible, unforgivable mistake with the menu!  Here's what we had:


Cilantro-Lime Marinated Chicken Breast, on skewers, with mango and red pepper chunks
Sprouted Rice and Quinoa Blend side
Creamy Lime Cole Slaw with Napa and Red Cabbages
Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower
Dairy Queen Ice Cream "cake" for future DIL's upcoming birthday

Looking at a pre-Father's Day newspaper, still sitting on the coffee table, here's the suggested menu to honor dear old Dad:

Grilled Steak (his choice of cut)
Creamed Cheese Mashed Potatoes
Grilled Romaine with Blue Cheese Dressing
Sausage-Jalapeno Stuffed Peppers
Milk-Chocolate Maple Bacon Cookies

So, I guess I prepared a "girly" meal for Hub.  He seemed to like it though.  Or maybe he liked that I actually cooked an entire meal and only asked his help on a couple of things, and he only had to calm my cooking anxiety once or twice.  He's the regular cook in our household; I assist.  So I'm sure he found the whole enterprise rather amusing.

But back to the man menu....ever heard the term "killing him with kindness"?   Isn't it time we moved on from "traditional guy food" being the kind that contributes to "traditional guy heart attacks"?  I mean, really!

Nutrition Action Health Letter (Subscribe!  Support Center for Science in the Public Interest!) has a June cover story linking consumption of red meat to heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.  And yet, we persist in thinking Dad would like a red meat/high fat meal to honor him.  I don't get it, unless Dad is some sort of world class jerk, in which case next June might be a happier month without him.  In that case, "Sure!  How about seconds?  And a cigar!!!"

As for Hub, I trust he'll be around next year when I will step into the kitchen again for his amusement.

At least, that's the view from here....©