Mussel Memory
Aug. 22nd, 2021 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogFine, nothing that fancy got pulled from a shell, or an old recipe. But this old dog is trying to relearn some old tricks here.
When Eleanor reported a list of long-unaired grievances not quite two weeks ago, one of them was that we had somehow devolved into her doing all the menu planning and meal preparation around here. Of course she was right about that. How we got there is clearer in hindsight, as most things are.
Granted, I'd been pretty helpless in a kitchen growing up. Home Ec was for girls, not that I was doing any better learning any useful life skills in the shop classes we were assigned to. Mom was hardly a Galloping Gourmet herself, and she didn't have the talent or inclination to share any skills she did have. Still, after a freshman year of dorm food, I was at least partially able to get through making a meal by the time we moved off-campus. While I worked for the dining service and still got to eat a lot of food in their facilities, once I famously learned the difference between a cabbage and a head of lettuce, I was competent enough to make some simple meals without burning the kitchen down. I'd somehow managed that for eight straight years before meeting Eleanor, despite at least one law school apartment kitchen that still gives my sister and me the heebie-jeebies to recall.
Then, for a good stretch of our married years, we shared the cooking detail. We'd more or less alternate weeks of planning, shopping for and laying out the meals. A few changes kicked in after a while, though. Which contributed the most to my culinary falloff is hard to say, but they all did to an extent. I was doing better financially for a time and was able and inclined to turn more of "my" nights into takeout. She, meanwhile, had shifted into sales positions working to "close" (9 p.m., typically), and even her early years with Wegmans had her working into nights several times a week. Finally, at least I had the sense that it was something she was better at, had more experience with and enjoyed doing more. Now and again, she'd be making something which didn't even have to be particularly fancy or expensive and she'd say, I've been looking forward to having this all day. I've maybe uttered that five times in the past ten years; I'll generally make and/or eat whatever is available, including making inefficient grocery runs to fill in a missing ingredient, and there's not all that much pleasure in the food itself other than it being filling.
So after the Airing of the Grievances, we've had several nights where I have taken the active role in preparing that evening's meal. With varying amounts of guidance, and with a limited amount of note-taking, I've added three chestnuts of our evening rotations into things I think I can now prepare for and then prepare entirely on my own. One of them was a seemingly simple spaghetti and meatball mix, but this was not my mother's Sunday night Spaghettios. Yes, the meatballs were prepared and frozen, and yes, the pasta sauce was out of a Danny can; but there were things to be added, and sequences to be set in motion, and portions to be measured, and directions on bag and box and jar that had to be followed, or in at least one case outright ignored. Was I really looking forward to having these all day? Not really. But she was looking forward to the help, and the learning curve, and that was enough to make me happy.
Today I knew, as soon as I saw cucumber on the grocery list this morning, what she had in mind for tonight: a recipe which adds leftover chicken to multiple salad greens and roasted red peppers, derived from a once-beloved Rochester restaurant she knew even before she met me. It was familiar enough for me to have probably done it with no guidance at all, and in the end I wound up doing more without any than I needed any help with. I'm not going to be doing any Youtube cooking videos, but I don't expect to be on Kitchen Nightmares, either.
Bon appetit:)
When Eleanor reported a list of long-unaired grievances not quite two weeks ago, one of them was that we had somehow devolved into her doing all the menu planning and meal preparation around here. Of course she was right about that. How we got there is clearer in hindsight, as most things are.
Granted, I'd been pretty helpless in a kitchen growing up. Home Ec was for girls, not that I was doing any better learning any useful life skills in the shop classes we were assigned to. Mom was hardly a Galloping Gourmet herself, and she didn't have the talent or inclination to share any skills she did have. Still, after a freshman year of dorm food, I was at least partially able to get through making a meal by the time we moved off-campus. While I worked for the dining service and still got to eat a lot of food in their facilities, once I famously learned the difference between a cabbage and a head of lettuce, I was competent enough to make some simple meals without burning the kitchen down. I'd somehow managed that for eight straight years before meeting Eleanor, despite at least one law school apartment kitchen that still gives my sister and me the heebie-jeebies to recall.
Then, for a good stretch of our married years, we shared the cooking detail. We'd more or less alternate weeks of planning, shopping for and laying out the meals. A few changes kicked in after a while, though. Which contributed the most to my culinary falloff is hard to say, but they all did to an extent. I was doing better financially for a time and was able and inclined to turn more of "my" nights into takeout. She, meanwhile, had shifted into sales positions working to "close" (9 p.m., typically), and even her early years with Wegmans had her working into nights several times a week. Finally, at least I had the sense that it was something she was better at, had more experience with and enjoyed doing more. Now and again, she'd be making something which didn't even have to be particularly fancy or expensive and she'd say, I've been looking forward to having this all day. I've maybe uttered that five times in the past ten years; I'll generally make and/or eat whatever is available, including making inefficient grocery runs to fill in a missing ingredient, and there's not all that much pleasure in the food itself other than it being filling.
So after the Airing of the Grievances, we've had several nights where I have taken the active role in preparing that evening's meal. With varying amounts of guidance, and with a limited amount of note-taking, I've added three chestnuts of our evening rotations into things I think I can now prepare for and then prepare entirely on my own. One of them was a seemingly simple spaghetti and meatball mix, but this was not my mother's Sunday night Spaghettios. Yes, the meatballs were prepared and frozen, and yes, the pasta sauce was out of a Danny can; but there were things to be added, and sequences to be set in motion, and portions to be measured, and directions on bag and box and jar that had to be followed, or in at least one case outright ignored. Was I really looking forward to having these all day? Not really. But she was looking forward to the help, and the learning curve, and that was enough to make me happy.
Today I knew, as soon as I saw cucumber on the grocery list this morning, what she had in mind for tonight: a recipe which adds leftover chicken to multiple salad greens and roasted red peppers, derived from a once-beloved Rochester restaurant she knew even before she met me. It was familiar enough for me to have probably done it with no guidance at all, and in the end I wound up doing more without any than I needed any help with. I'm not going to be doing any Youtube cooking videos, but I don't expect to be on Kitchen Nightmares, either.
Bon appetit:)