blogthecat

On doing very little

A couple of weeks ago, on a Tuesday or Wednesday night after a long workday, I made this meal for our family: fusilli with roasted garlic, cauliflower, and red peppers; spinach; a couple of tablespoons of diced tomatoes; and oregano and basil. All topped with goat cheese and pine nuts (because we're not animals!)

But it wasn't enough. We needed a side, so I made a Caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, and fresh basil. Did Craig and the kids like it? Yes they did. But there was this:

• One hour of me cooking, following a chunk of time the day before roasting vegetables;
• A good 45 minutes cleaning everything up.

A bit nuts.

This sort of thing isn't unusual at our house – the weeknight gourmet meal – because I love to cook, and also because I feel a deep compulsion to try to make dinners both healthy and yum. Do you hear echoes of the '50s? Then, too, moms poured untold hours into canned-tomato-soup–based cakes and gelatin-bound meat, vegetable, or fruit salads. Not just the '50s, either. Boeuf Bourguignon in the '60s. Quiche in the '70s. Lasagne in the '80s. And so on.

I came to question all this when I got slammed with the flu this past Monday. SLAMMED. (It was so brutal that I feel the urge to list all my symptoms and pain here now, but don't worry, I am stopping myself.)

Out went the elaborate meals, and in came the pizza, frozen enchiladas, and instant ramen. In came the warm cats to my bed to cuddle, and the husband bringing mugs of chai tea. In came the most wonderful afternoons with my kids. Like, amazing. Lots of movies. Lots of them reading and doing hobbies in my room while I lay prone under heaps of extra blankets for my chills.

I made one dinner: a veggie burger for O (Georgia and Craig were out). I was so foggy that I forgot tomatoes, avocado, pickles, and onion. There was just bun, burger, ketchup, mayo, and relish - an abomination. O bit into the burger and said, "Hmm – it doesn't  taste like it usually does ... and it's so thin!" We both looked aghast, and then we started laughing like fools. My cooking failure was so much fun, such a curious bonding moment. "Mom," said Oliver tentatively, "I have really been liking this week with you sick – is that bad?"

After the meal, he poured me a bubbly water and led me upstairs to my bed, letting me whine all the way. He brought in his book of hockey cards and got to work sorting its pages. I crawled deep into the covers and was happy.

My life slowed right down this week, and while I would NEVER wish for the merciless waves of excruciating aches and wretchedness (that I endured so stoically, as you can imagine), I sure did become a fan of frozen and canned dinners. And not once did my family ask for anything better.

Annnd ... now I have a craving for BBQ'd baloney!

 

Growing up was not always easy

I recently wrote about my parents' flair for mixing high art and folk art, but it wasn't always this way. There were many bumps along the road.

As young hipsters who came of age in the early sixties, my parents went through the requisite period of naked art. This period coincided with my childhood and really got horrible when my brother and I were teens. There was a nude to be found on every floor of our house. It was not always easy to invite friends over when you knew they would see the enormous painting in our living room of Red-Haired Lady. Ghostly pale, ample-hipped, lovely-boobed, and vagina-ed. Head too small for body. Cruella-de-Vil-ish. Crimson. Just imagine being 13 with that one taking up a whole wall in your living room.

Status: Still in their house, but banished to the basement thank god.

Then there was the dining room, with its Nigerian Ibeje statues. To them: high art. To us: more naked people. More than naked, erect. Conical boobs and rod-straight penises sticking out from their bodies, just hanging out with us while we ate. Now in this case, I cannot say we wanted them gone (and thank goodness they’re not gone, because they’re really valuable). We called them “the guys.” They provided hours of entertainment, and we’d arrange them in poses to best highlight their appendages.

Status: Now commanding an entire side table in the dining room, still joining us for dinners and delighting the newest generation of kids. "Guy" pictured here is one of the more discreet in the collection.

Perhaps most egregious was "Angelica." You’d bring your friends up to the third floor and there she was, staring down from the walls on the staircase, just holding her wolf mask over her face as one does, very serious and of course buck naked. Why, we would ask, why do we need to have such mortifying things?

Status: Still in their house, on stairs leading up to attic, still just terrible.

There was little to do but suffer. Mercifully it was also the time of Corey Hart's Never Surrender. Haywire's Black and Blue (Sandra Woodbridge!). John Waite's Missing You. To these artists I owe a great debt. It is possible my brother chose different sources of solace, though I can't imagine why.

Blurry but still highly watchable videos attached for your viewing pleasure.