Cooking For Show ... And Dough

I love watching the Food Network. Among my favorite cooking show hosts are Paula Deen (Paula's Home Cooking) and Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa). The Gregory is partial to Emeril Lagasse (Emeril Live!) but I have to be out of stuff to do if I'm going to sit and watch that. Rachael Ray (30-Minute Meals) is talented and shrewd but for some reason she has a tendency to get on my nerves. Sandra Lee (Semi-Homemade) is also pretty clever and she has some good ideas but she's too perfect for my taste. Makes me cringe. Alton Brown (Good Eats) is interestingly cool. Oh, and I like that new show, Ace of Cakes.

I plan to watch the premiere of Down Home With the Neelys on February 2 ... looks cute. In the promo spot Gina Neely says, real saucy-like, as Pat walks away: "He keeps stealin' mah sugar!" Makes me laugh and that's a good sign. The only show I really can't handle is Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour. Any guy who would consume still-beating cobra hearts on national television does not require my support. That's just showing off.

Ina Garten technically doesn't need my support either (she has homes in East Hampton, New York, and Southport, Connecticut; her husband, Jeffrey, teaches at Yale University's School of Management, where he used to be the Dean ... I'm not sure which of them is the bigger cash cow) ... but I give it to her anyway. A stellar cook, somehow she always makes me believe I could do what she does. Sort of. She and Jeffrey are so cute the way they bill and coo at one another every time he comes home. Ina will be cooking away in her spacious pure-white kitchen with acres of gardens growing outside its sparkling windows. Cut to Jeffrey in his late-model Beamer, top down, wending his way toward their rustically elegant manse, checking his watch often because he knows Ina's punctual about serving her fabulous (but oh-so-easy) dinners.

Cut back to Ina, who has just done a rough chop on some fresh (as in, it was growing in her yard just minutes before filming) basil and added it to a made-from-scratch tex-mex corn pudding, rich and cheesy and now nestled in a cosseting water bath, bubbling away in her commercial-grade oven. She is busy assembling a mouth-watering tequila-lime marinade for chicken breasts so plump and fresh, you can still hear the cackle. Somehow I doubt she got them for $1.99 per pound at Kroger. She pops the marinating poultry into her immaculate 85-cubic-foot fridge and immediately begins working on a key lime pie. Before you can say "lime zest" that's done and she has deposited a delectable homemade dessert into her gleaming freezer, which has a putting-green-sized shelf all cleaned off and waiting for it. (My pie would decompose ... and so would my mood ... while I shifted ice cream cartons, half-used bags of frozen broccoli, and assorted other cryogenically-preserved foodstuffs in order to free up a level surface.)

When I was a bride-to-be I was the guest of honor at several showers given by kind friends of my mother's. One gift with which I was especially smitten was the most darling little cut-crystal ice bucket, complete with sterling silver tongs. What did the wife of a schoolteacher need with such a useless item? I did not ask that question and neither should you. It was aesthetically pleasing, spoke of culture and an appreciation for finer things, and I couldn't wait to use it. We lived in an apartment and there wasn't much money and I knew practically nothing about cooking. I shudder to think what I might have been serving the night The Gregory came home and I had the table all set, including the tiny crystal bucket replete with ice, tongs resting glamorously atop the (melting) cubes. He took one look and laughed out loud ... but not at my cooking. Later he would tell it thus: "There were two glasses ... mine and hers. There was ice in my glass and ice in her glass ... and this ridiculous little bucket in the middle of the table, full of ice cubes nobody needed!"

Ahem. Let's just say, The Gregory has learned a great deal in the ensuing twenty-eight and a half years. Ironically however, now that he's sufficiently reformed to know better than to make fun of anything on my table, a crystal ice bucket would be the last thing I'd think of putting there. C'est la vie, y'all. The operative sentiment in my kitchen is and shall remain, "You've got two choices: take it or leave it."

Cut back to Ina and Jeffrey. He arrives home and they start hugging and kissing even before he gets in the house. They're giggling and she's promising him "the best weekend of your life." It's always the weekend at Ina and Jeffrey's. My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. Ina sends Jeffrey outside to fire up the barbie while she sets the table. Because limes feature largely in the meal, she starts with a tablecloth that is just the right shade of green. She adds a huge bowl of limes to the center, offset by two vasefuls of hot-hued Gerbera daisies. She checks on Jeffrey, who has set the bag of charcoal briquets on fire. She apparently thinks this is adorable and titters at him flirtily, making sweet eyes. In the same situation with The Gregory, I doubt that would be my reaction.

Soon Ina and Jeffrey are chowing down on perfectly-grilled chicken breasts, sinfully rich corn pudding, and key lime pie with freshly-whipped cream and real lime wedges on top. And of course, the proper wine. The feast, as always, is a triumph. Ina can't stop blushing and Jeffrey promises to love her forever. The food fairies dance off into the night, sprinkling spoofle dust.

Like Jeffrey, The Gregory does not disappoint when it comes to appreciating my cooking (such as it is). He always makes noises of excited anticipation when he comes in the door at the end of the day and encounters either visual or olfactory evidence that I have been preparing something for him to eat. Even if all I've done is open a few cans or mash up a potato or scramble a couple of eggs, he comes up with positive comments and seems to relish every bite. Sometimes he adds a little ketchup where in my view none is needed, but he does not do it snidely. He's the classic easy-to-please type.

And also like Jeffrey, TG is as liberal with his kisses and whispered sweet-everythings as he is with his praise for my limited culinary accomplishments. As Ina would say: How good is that?

The Day The Pod Opened

Years ago when we had only two kids, no pets and no mortgage, The Gregory worked as a high school Biology teacher by day and a basketball coach by night. One winter evening he came home, hugged the girls, gave me a kiss, hung up his coat, put down his books, and placed a small brown pod on the kitchen counter.

"What is that?" I wanted to know. "And what is it doing in my kitchen? Am I supposed to cook it?"

The Gregory averred that the pod was something he had ordered from a lab supplier to use when he sowed his vegetable garden come spring. No further explanation was forthcoming. He asked if I had a container to temporarily house the pod, which was smaller than a ping-pong ball. It did not look even vaguely threatening, so I handed over a Mason jar. TG plopped the pod into the bottom of the jar and pushed it to the back of a small bit of counter space. The use of a lid was deemed unnecessary. These were days busy with caring for toddlers, and I gave the pod no more thought.

The weather is fickle in Northwest Indiana and that year was no different. About a month after TG brought the pod home and gave it a Mason jar repository on my kitchen counter, temperatures shot up and we had a few short-sleeve days. I opened windows and the kids played outside. It would get cold again; this we knew, so we enjoyed the warmth while we could.

On the second or third unseasonably warm afternoon I walked into the kitchen to begin preparing dinner. Some unexpected movement caught my eye and I glanced at the pod's Mason jar. And you'll never believe what I saw. Hundreds -- hundreds -- of tiny insects were proceeding willy-nilly from the interior of the mysterious pod, which had broken open like an egg. The bugs, about as big as rice grains and a disgusting light-beige color, had marched up the inside and down the outside of their Mason jar, across the counter, and were stalking, single-file, down my cabinets. A few of them had already reached the floor!

Let me interject right here, it would be difficult for me to convey to you in words just how much I hate bugs. You know how on that Fear Factor show, they used to offer people money if they'd lie down in a glass box and allow big bucketfuls of horrible bugs to be poured over them, and a glass lid put on for a certain number of minutes while the bugs crawled ... uhm, suffice to say, if someone did that to me I would expire on the spot. Two bugs would do the job; forget about a bucketful. I can't stand the thought of bugs in my house or anywhere near me. They creep me out. That goes double for spiders and do not talk to me about centipedes.

So picture my reaction when I saw the cadre of bugs marching around my kitchen! (Turns out they were neophyte praying mantises ... the original idea had been to put the pod in the garden so that, when it hatched, the little bugs would pour forth and patrol growing plants, scarfing up unwanted vermin. Unfortunately we kept them in the house one day too long.) I started screaming and ran outside, over to my next-door neighbor's house. She had a strapping teenaged son named David, and he came to the door when I frantically knocked. "David," I gasped. "I need your help!" David followed me anxiously; he told me later he thought I had a cooking fire or that one of the kids had gotten badly hurt!

When I took him into the kitchen and pointed to the droves of baby praying mantises (which by now had gotten the fridge door open and were organizing a picnic, heh heh ... just kidding), David chuckled. Armed with a broom, a fly swatter, and no discernible fear of diminutive insects, he earned my eternal gratitude by swiftly ridding my kitchen of the Mason jar, the pod, and the bugs that had emanated from its dark depths. TG's garden would have to rely on pesticides that year for protection from unwanted al fresco diners of all types.

Small but determined things sometimes emerge from the most unexpected sources. A box at the back of a dresser drawer falls open before your searching fingers, revealing forgotten objects that release a floodtide of bittersweet memories. A yearbook or a diary found while rummaging in a closet for something else entirely emits images and words that haunt us until the past is once again relegated to the recesses of the mind where it belongs. A shelf or table where mementoes are enshrined can be prodded while dusting and suddenly the treasures spring to life, humming with meaning and significance as we tenderly hold them and allow their messages to encroach on our consciousness. Sometimes feelings of sadness, panic, or guilt follow.

At such moments we shouldn't fear or avoid the emotional reactions that spill out unbidden. Awakened after a period of dormancy, it's healthier if they are allowed to walk around our psyche, sniffing out old fears that can be quelled by the energy of the seemingly unrelated event. Often, introspection naturally leads to housekeeping. But remember that feelings of guilt and regret, while they can be useful landmarks, are never to be mistaken for a reliable road map. It's true what Emerson wrote: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Scene And Herd

Saturday afternoon, Christmas gift cards and money smoldering in our wallets, my man and I reluctantly spent two hours or so at our local mall. Don't get me wrong ... Columbiana Centre is a nice mall. I just don't want to spend any time there. See, I like to shop but I despise malls. While I am certain there are malls in existence that I would enjoy visiting, I am equally certain that none of them are within driving distance of my house, or indeed even in the state where I live.

The most innovative and upbeat of malls lose their romance for me in short order because I quickly begin to feel claustrophobic when I cannot readily see out of a window. Most people flock to malls when it's raining outside (the conventional wisdom being that there is little else to do), but I consider watching rain fall a very fine and fascinating activity. It was raining on Saturday and if it hadn't been for those gift cards, I would have opted for a trip to Barnes & Noble where I could acquire a Starbucks grande latte and ensconce myself in a chair near a window, a good book my sole companion.

I dislike malls because, for ten months before my wedding, I worked in a mall. At the time I lived with a girlfriend and we had one car between us (hers). Since the two of us were employed by different stores within the mall, we were each at the mercy of the other's schedule. If she worked the ten-to-six shift selling shoes at one ubiquitous retail outlet and I worked the one-to-nine shift selling coats at another, I had to go three hours early and she had to stay three hours late ... unless she wanted to come back and get me.

Luckily for her, usually when she got off at six and I worked until nine, my gentleman caller picked me up from work and deposited me at home after feeding me at the local Pizza Hut. During that time The Gregory and I became engaged, so the scenario generally involved him collecting me from the mall so that we could become ever more besotted while making decidedly un-elaborate plans for our future.

That winter, the winter The Gregory and I became betrothed, was an exceedingly bitter season in Northwest Indiana where we lived. For forty days in a row the temperature struggled to attain the freezing mark. Many days were snowy and there was always a relentless, stinging wind. The threat of icy roads was a constant concern. Often The Gregory's car door locks were frozen and inoperable. He'd manage to get the driver's side door open but by the time he arrived at the mall to get me, it would be frozen again. Many times it was necessary for me to climb through the window of his Toyota Celica if I were going to get a ride home. I'll thank you not to snicker at that visual! Yes, it was nice and warm in the mall where I worked, but no, I still didn't enjoy being cooped up in there. When I quit my job and married, I made myself a promise I'd never work in a mall again, and I haven't. And I won't. When I drive by a mall my main thought is that I'm glad I'm free to keep on driving.

Ever notice that when you go into a store without much money you can guiltlessly spend, you want everything you see ... but when you go laden with gift cards and Christmas or birthday money, you're hard pressed to find a single thing you can't live without? Why is that? I don't know but that's what happened to me on Saturday. (Naturally I saw plenty of things I wanted that cost anywhere from ten to one hundred times the amount I had to spend, but that's to be expected.) What was worse, The Gregory was having the same trouble and he had to get rid of almost as much Christmas money as I did! I must point out here that while he was of no help to me in making my selections, I had to paw through quantities of pre-pawed sweaters, shirts, slippers, gloves, and assorted other male furnishings to assist him in picking something out.

It might have been because I was spending somebody else's money, but considering my distaste for the whole scene, I had a pretty good time at the mall. I met six lovely ladies, all of whom were working in different stores, and each one of them was so very nice to me. In their own way they helped me revert my gift cards from hard shiny currency to worthless pieces of plastic, and I am very pleased with the result of their (and my) diligence. The Gregory found some things he seems to be happy with, too.

One positive experience notwithstanding, the mall still isn't the scene for me and I doubt it ever will be. At one point I was walking, the way you're obliged to do in a mall, with hundreds of other people going the same direction. It began to feel as though we were all in the vice-grip of some insidious and invisible undercurrent. Suddenly I so badly wanted to say, real loud: "MOOOOOOOOO ..." because the whole scene evoked livestock in a pasture. Like I was being herded and there was no need to think about what would happen next.

Isn't it cows that always believe the grass is greener on the other side? I frequently see the stores I would like to go into on the opposite side of the pathway than I am being hustled along by my fellow shoppers. I'd have to somehow break free of the crowd and do a u-turn in order to investigate those stores, but a paralyzing apathy always precludes such a bold move. By default I become a creature of inertia in a mall, and I loathe the feeling it produces.

So, five seconds after I had spent my last Christmas penny and our gift cards had joined the other worthless dreck populating the department store trashcans, The Gregory shepherded me toward the doors and outside. It was still raining and there was the threat of snow (which threat was never made good upon). Like the old married folks we are, instead of climbing through our car windows we sedately unlocked the vehicle and carefully stepped aboard. We didn't stop at Pizza Hut but we did go to the grocery and buy the ingredients for homemade pizza, which we enjoyed while sitting by the fire watching the Duke-Clemson basketball game. It was a warm and comfortable evening and if you're saying it sounds a little bit boring, well, I herd that ... but you're wrong. It was a lovely scene.

It's A Wash

When I was growing up we owned few conveniences. For example, we never had a telephone. Which was okay because we almost never had anyone to call! We always had an automobile (with a working radio), clothes to wear, and usually a dog, but there were times we didn't have much else. This was the 'sixties, man! It was cool! When we had an actual roof over our heads as opposed to a tent, we had electricity (although I believe there were times we didn't actually pay for it), running water, indoor plumbing, a stove, and a refrigerator. For most of my childhood our sole luxury -- aside from the fact that we lived in the United States of America -- was a television set. We were rarely without that commodity.

During those interesting and thankfully infrequent times when our address was a campground, our "range" was a Coleman campstove and our "fridge" was a Coleman cooler. My mom could cook up a storm on that stove, and there was always cold milk in the cooler. The high pines were fragrant. Their needles provided a soft self-cleaning carpet, and the wind in their branches made a mysterious music if you were listening. Life was pretty good. Lighting was courtesy of a single Coleman lantern that required use of the little glowing sock-like mantles. Why we didn't go ahead and buy stock in the Coleman company, I'll never know! Well, maybe I do know. If Coleman stock was going at fifty cents a share, most of the time we couldn't have afforded a share for each family member. Not to mention the dog.

As for the facilities when camping, we only had to walk about a quarter-mile for those. It wasn't that bad because the weather's mild in southern Florida. The dicey part came when you had to deal with those torrential three-day monsoons for which the region is justifiably famous. My main difficulty with the restroom situation was when you had to walk that quarter-mile at night, alone ... because sometimes your loved ones hid in the bushes and jumped out to scare you. That was so funny! Not. Scarred me for life, it did. I still won't walk alone to the restroom after dark.

One thing my mother always insisted upon, though, was that we be clean and wear clean clothes (it may have been the 'sixties but we were not going to be mistaken for hippies). Generally this signified regular trips to the laundromat to wash the clothes and, if we were flush at the moment or lacked access to a clothesline, to dry them there too. I liked the laundromat with its overheated humid roar, odd cast of characters, tiny boxes of powdered soap (or space-age Salvo detergent tablets) for sale out of a dispenser that stood next to the change machine, and the rolling carts.

I was especially enamored of those rolling carts. You appropriated one upon your arrival and wheeled it around everywhere you went so that, when your clothes got done revolving in the huge dime-eating dryer with an entertaining window -- I just saw my pink nightgown! -- you could deftly position "your" cart beneath said dryer's cave-like mouth and rake your clean, hot, dry clothes into it. Then you glided importantly over to one of the big, worn, Formica-topped tables and did your folding. It was so much fun to go home with the clothes all folded and just plop them, still warm, into your waiting dresser drawers. Or, when we were camping, boxes that served as dressers.

More often than not, though, if memory serves, we toted the soggy laundry home and employed an ingenious horizontal-type dryer -- complete with solar energy -- to finish the job. That was before we settled in Florida and eventually acquired a wringer washer. A white behemoth with a tight-lipped rolling-pin maw, the washer sat on a six-by-six foot screened porch at the back of our house. My sister and I would sort the loads by color, fill the washer with water, add the soap, and set it agitating. The tub was spacious and it was rather satisfying watching the water turn gray with dirt that had been lurking in your clothes. After washing, you drained the tub out and added clean water for rinsing. When you judged the clothes were clean and no longer soapy, you started up the wringers and began pushing the dripping garments through the rollers where they fell, flat as unlucky cartoon characters, into a waiting basket on the other side.

We had a baby brother and sister so there were lots of "rubber pants" that you wanted to avoid pushing through there because invariably a plastic bubble would form and "pop" the diaper covers, rendering them useless. Also you lived in fear of getting distracted and pushing too hard, and having your fingers end up between the wringers. Man oh man, did that ever hurt. You commenced yelling and, if you had sufficient presence of mind, hit the handle on the side of the wringer housing, releasing the grip of the washer's powerful toothless gums. Then you hopped around, drawing what breath you could through your own (clenched) teeth, and examined the red pinpoints that had appeared on the ends of your squished digits. Hard times.

Next you headed outside, scanning the horizon for rainclouds. Seeing none, you got busy snapping each piece of laundry smartly, enjoying the resultant cool fine mist that settled over your sweaty face and arms. I favored the "overlap" system of hanging; it required fewer reaches into the clothespin bag and fewer squeezes on the spring-operated pins themselves. The sooner you were done, the sooner you could park your carcass under a tree and continue reading your book. It was always great fun too when, just about the time the clothes would be getting dry, you heard thunder in the distance, indicating the approach of rain. You'd tear outside and begin frantically removing the wash from the line lest it get re-soaked. "Rain is dirty," our stepfather always reminded us ominously. It was awful when the rain came just as the laundry was almost, but not quite, dry. That meant that after the storm you'd have to re-hang it to finish drying. Otherwise it would sour.

Why, oh why, you might be asking yourself at this point, can't she shut up already about the way they did laundry in the stone age? Well, stay with me. Today one of my lovely daughters called me from her place of work. Audrey is an Order Representative for Whirlpool Corporation in Knoxville, Tennessee. She works hard and is a team player, and they like her there. If you live in new construction -- whether it be a single-family dwelling or an apartment or condo -- in the Great Lakes region of the USA, and you have Whirlpool appliances, chances are that my daughter had a hand in those appliances being delivered in a timely fashion for installation in your kitchen or laundry room. Just so you know. Plus which, she's a dollface and a Johnny Depp fan ... simply a marvelous girl, very smart and sweet. No, I am not biased. Okay, maybe a little.

The reason she called me today and her first words were "Guess What!?!" -- and I know her pretty well so I could tell she was excited about something -- was to tell me that her employer had held a site-wide drawing and she won. The prize? A Whirlpool Duet washer and dryer set. Top of the line. Now she can sell her present washer and dryer combination, bought used about six months ago, and use the proceeds to buy the new tires she needs for her car. And begin enjoying the luxury of a brand-new set of primo Whirlpool laundry appliances. I am so happy for her and I knew you would be too.

Recently I caught the last twenty minutes of one of my favorite classic movies, The Yearling (1946). It always makes me cry when adorable, passionate Jody (Claude Jarman, Jr.) returns home to his post-Civil War Florida pioneer-farmer parents after running off in a fit of hysteria upon the cruel but necessary death of his beloved pet fawn, Flag. "I been on the river," he tells his sick and worried father, Ezra (Gregory Peck). His mother, Orry (Jane Wyman), is still out searching for him, but before she returns, Jody and "Ezry" make plans for the future. They're going to work the land together and build a good life for their family. I like it when Ezra says to Jody: "I'd be proud to see the day when you got a well dug, so's no woman here'd be obliged to do her washin' on a seepage hillside. You willin'?"

That was one hundred years before my family did our washing on a screened-in back porch, shoving the clothes through wooden wringers and hanging the wet laundry on a line in the yard. Forty years later, my daughter has won herself a brand-new Whirlpool Duet washer and dryer set. When Audrey was growing up we had a chore chart; everybody pitched in with household duties. If she was ever enthusiastic about doing laundry, I've forgotten it. I'll bet that's about to change. But one thing never changes: parents always want their children to "have it better" than they had it. In late nineteenth-century Florida, the most a woman could hope for with regard to the task of clothes-washing was a well in her yard. I lived in an easier, albeit less simple, time and we used the laundromat and a wringer washer. Audrey lives in an America that gets scarier by the day, but she'll never have to do her washing on a seepage hillside or use a wringer. Who's got it better? I figure it's a wash.

Winter Will

It's not often that you see snow in the midlands of South Carolina ... but as I look out my window tonight, that's what I see. It's a slushy mess, mixed with rain, not sticking to much right now but the temperature is falling. We've had such warm weather throughout December and January, the sudden arrival of wintry conditions is sort of disorienting. Exactly two cold days since Christmas, and now this ... but I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, so I like it. The fire is crackling merrily and I'm wearing an oversized sweatshirt over my pajamas, plus socks which I will wear to bed but undoubtedly kick off in the middle of the night. I can't stand socks on my feet for the entire night, for some reason ... even though we keep our bedroom cold. No vents open in winter ... only in summer. And the ceiling fan will be on. Cuddling may be necessary.

Winter will make you think about stuff that summer won't. Like, you'll watch the weather channel a little more often to see if any meteorological excitement might be on the horizon. When the "snow" or "ice" buzz starts around town, you'll stock up on popcorn and hot chocolate and bread and milk and other staples against the possibility of two or three days when you can't get out of the driveway. You'll make sure you have plenty of candles, and something to light them with, and extra blankets, in case there is a power outage. You'll hope against hope that if school is canceled, work will be too. That way, everyone can stay warm and safe. The family can watch a movie together, or play a game, and there won't be any homework.

Winter will make you thankful for stuff that summer won't. Like, the obvious things of the roof over your head and the warm clothing you own, and conveniences such as the furnace and water heater or your electric blanket. There is nothing more wonderful than a hot shower on the morning of a really cold day when you don't have to go out ... you can dress in toasty flannel and warm socks and your favorite slippers, moisturize your face and forget about doing your hair. You can linger long over your steaming mug of coffee. You can read a good book or write a letter or watch an old movie or work a crossword puzzle, or start writing your novel. And you can be thankful that you have the time and the wherewithal to do these things.

Winter will make you feel compassion for others in a way that summer won't. Like, those who have no home and no warm bed to sleep in, and no one to love them. So many people are alone ... and while it's one thing to be alone in summer, it's quite another to be alone when it's cold and bleak and desolate outside. Lots of animals too, those who were meant to live inside, won't have anywhere to go on cold days and nights. I can't stand to think about them roaming the streets and yards, trying to find a scrap to eat and warm dry place to lie down. And what about those people who are sick or grieving? All pain and all sorrow is worse in winter. In winter most of all, it's important to look for ways we might encourage those having a hard time.

Winter has come and winter will go ... spring with its beauty and summer with its fun will follow, and the burdens of cold weather will ease. Until then, nothing will make you contemplate life's complexities like winter will.