Recession Gourmet

I love to cook.

This does not mean I am a great cook, but I do love to cook. I love to be in the kitchen, surrounded by people I love (a restless husband, children drawing or doing homework, or girlfriends sitting at the table and telling me great and funny stories.) I like to sip a little wine, crank up some really great music to annoy my neighbors, throw open the windows and doors so the late afternoon spring sunshine streams in, and offer tastes along the way to all the hungry people waiting around. (boys, friends, husband). That really does make me happy. Like I am feeding the world.

At least my little world.

When I first had people to cook for (first a husband, then some boys) I was so happy I probably went a little crazy. I could no longer live on yogurt and aglio and olio. I had people to cook for! To nourish!

Back then, when cooking for people still felt new, I loved to pick exotic recipes and then hunt down the crazy--and obscure--ingredients--from all over L.A.. It was a great way to tour this town of ethnic districts. Indian spices in Atwater. Fish in Glendale. Weird Asian vegetables in Thai town. Expensive European ingredients, Whole Foods and the Mayfair. Armenian specialties, my corner market.

It was my own personal city-wide scavenger hunt.

But I am more tired now, and poorer. I can no longer approach each meal as an excuse to travel from one side of this sprawling city to the other and spend extravagantly on hard to find ingredients from high end cookbooks.

I have to be creative, and make do.

A note on this: my mother was creative, and made do. In some ways this was cool. She grew vegetables, made yogurt from cultures, made jam (that never really hardened, but tasted soooooo good), and could open a refrigerator of nothing and create something delicious. Sometimes I was filled with wonder. Sometimes fear.

She was so frugal that often her eighteenth century approach to saving everything to make something else could go wrong. Like the time she made two giant containers worth of homemade chicken broth and froze them in our basement refrigerator. One turned over, and leaked out onto the floor, and began to putrify. We could not identify the source of the horrible stink in our house. I think our dog found it.

By the time we did find it, the smell was so awful that my father and I had to put handkerchiefs over our mouths like we were running through tear gas, run and get the plastic pitchers, run them outside, dig a hole, and bury them under two feet of dirt. I could not eat chicken broth, or chicken, for twenty years. (Is this what made it so easy to be a vegetarian???)

So you can see there was some trauma in the creative use of food.

But now, with a family of my own, and less money, I have to do some of the same things (minus the rotten chicken broth). When I make a chicken, two days later I make chicken soup. When I cook vegetables, a few days later I dump the leftovers into spaghetti sauce, or risotto, or soup. Often the first round was wonderfully spiced so the flavors travel onto the next dish like a secret hidden spice capsule--hard to detect, but there.

This is a work through the leftovers week, so I am thinking of all this, and how I have changed.

I still love my scavenger hunt for the perfect ingredient. But I also love pulling something leftover from the refrigerator and making it the base of something totally new. I mean I get turned on! I want to dance around the kitchen and cackle! I feel gleeful -- like I pulled one over on somebody.

Today I took our perfectly spiced easter lamb leftovers and threw them into a pot to make harira, the ramadan staple, made of lentils, chickpeas, lamb and other spices. The only ingredient I had to buy was saffron.

I feel so delighted with myself. So resourceful and creative and frugal--but also gourmet.

And I think, this is probably how those women in Morocco felt when they made their harira. They were not running from store to store across a city a million miles wide to get each ingredient. These were ingredients in their house they could pull down in a pinch and slow-cook to deliciousness while they went about their work.

It is a private pleasure--no one can really appreciate but me. I don't want to brag about my frugal creations. But it is a wonder--to create something magnificent out of something that was nearly ready to be thrown away.

And I wonder what my boys will think of me, and my cooking. I mean I know they love it--they cannot help it--it is home. That is a perk of the (mother) job.

But will they remember the scavenger hunts (those can be so fun) or the frugal recreations?

I'll get back to you in 20 years and let you know...

Words of Comfort from My Hubbie

"Sandra Day O'Connor took five years off to be with her kids. Enjoy it."

A Question of Human Nature

Dear Reader,

Do you think it is just human nature to take and take whatever you can take?

I wonder about this sometimes. I think about our corporations--how they take and take from employees until the employees threaten to leave, or sue, or go public with their mistreatment. Until then corporations will do anything--cut salaries, double health care costs, take away vacation. If you do a good job and do not complain, you are vulnerable. Unless you have a group that can threaten mass action.

Same in relationships. If you give freely, without complaining, does that mean it comes at no cost to you? Does that mean that your gift, your time, is the new standard for what should be given? Give once, it is a gift. Give constantly and it is just the way it is. Soon someone will ask for more, and forget that what you are doing is already as much as you can give. That it was a sacrifice, something special, given out of love.

I hate to go all Germaine Greer over the holidays, but it makes me think about women. We are trained professionally to be kick ass and hard working. But socially, we are still taught to care for people, to think about how others feel, to serve with a smile. Even if you reject this notion wholeheartedly, this is our society, and this information seeps into you somewhere. It is present in expectations, in social interactions.

Children intensify this. Because you must give wholeheartedly with children. You cannot be on guard, or questioning what they ask for. You must give with love, and give as freely as you can, always. This does not mean spoiling. But it does mean often, very often, putting them before yourself.

And so I wonder, in a capitalist society, where on some deep level we are all trying to get something out of other people, are women at a disadvantage? Are we unwilling/unable to be as ruthless as we need to be? Does love, family, make us vulnerable to those who wish to take advantage of us?

Sure, there are non monetary rewards. Many. But it can also be a total mindfuck. And on some level you have to decide--do you want to be the US of A (a power to be reckoned with?) or Tunisia (beautiful, you should visit sometime, no power at all on the global stage, better join together with 100 other small, powerless nations to make your point on the international stage, at which point the point you were trying to make will be so diluted it will no longer be comprehensible--this was my lesson from Model U.N. in High School, where I was a representative from lowly Tunisia)

How do we walk this line? How do we navigate? How do you stand up without saying I can take advantage of YOU as much as you can take advantage of ME? How do you love and give and take care of those who need it, while also constantly staying on guard, and letting no one take advantage? Or, let's make it less overt and agressive--simply being taking for granted?

(Note: I remember after giving birth I could no long play ruthlessly on the racquet ball court, nor be really aggressive in interviews. I simply could not maintain both personas--the nurturer and the warrior)

How does an act of love turn into an act of weakness in a power play?

Any thoughts wise women of the world? Or wise men?

In Search of Motherhood. And Myself.

This blog entry is dedicated to Jessica--who always encourages me to keep writing and blogging!

I miss my blog. And i miss myself. I feel like i am disappearing. I am just going to doctors, dentists, swimming lessons, errands, and supporting various amazing friends in their creative endeavors (where have MY creative endeavors gone?)

My hubbie tells me: Let's do a career day.

This is a tradition for us. We used to go every six months, to talk about our dreams, our goals, where we were going. We would talk in the car to good music on the way to Santa Barbara. Then we would hike for two hours on the Cold Springs Trail (it survived the Tea Fire!!!!!) following every tangent and mental detour and dead end with no interruption from children, phones or life. Then we would go and eat WAAAAAY too much at Superrica, the best Mexican food in California, accompanied by a cold bottle of Negro Modelo or Bohemia. Then, fat, happy and tired, we would drive down to the beach, walk in the waves, and decide on the goals. Both of us would focus 100% on the person of the day. The day would end with some scribbling in a journal, dated and down.

We didn't share days. We each had our own.

But in the last year I have dropped out. We talk about Jonathan's career, but not mine. It is not his fault. He always asks. Tells me he is available. He is even the one who drove to find out if my favorite trail with the cold, clear pools and natural water slides had survived the fire.

It is me. The longer I go without talking about my dreams, without writing on my blog, without writing in my journal, the further underground my dreams go. They don't die. They just go under my skin, my blood vessells, deep into the marrow of my bones. They become shy things, scared of the light, where I can't talk about them anymore.

So now, when Jonathan asks, I am not ready. I feel like I have to birth those ideas all over again.

I remember growing up how my mother used to say: "I have lost myself. I don't know who I am."

I was strong, willful and alive. I thought her words were ridiculous. I vowed to never be like her.

She didn't say them with self-pity, entitlement, or anger. It was simply a truth. I think perhaps she was startled by the fact.

But now I understand. It is not that you are less, or less important. Probably I am more vitally important to more people. It is that everything about yourself becomes submerged in caring for others. In the constant crush of daily life--
I fought to be here. To be on hand for my boys. To be here to pick them up, feed them, watch them. And for my husband, too. And I know I will regenerate. But I feel like myself, my real essential self, is just going into a cave. I am calling, but she is not answering. And I miss her.

I feel like I need a vision quest. Like I need to go into the woods alone. Like I need to walk and walk and walk, carrying only my journal, a pen, my oil pastels and a plastic jug of water. I would not prepare meals or get anyone ready for bed. I would not do errands, or put small people in and out of cars or protect them from giant SUVS bearing down on me driven by angry blond women on cell phones driving too fast.

I would just be still, and stare up at the stars. I would listen, and hear the earth. I would stop, and smell the flowers, the pine-needles in the sun, the air heating up the world for summer. I would feel my soul come back to life.

Hello, soul. Are you there?

Mother's Day--That's ME!

There was once a time when I prayed--please, God, let "mother" NOT be the primary way I define myself. I still do not want it to be the primary way, or the only way. And yet, on this day, about mothers, I realize, that being a mother is one of the great joys of my life. Of course I fantasize about what I might have been, or could have done, if I did not have children to take care of. But, as some wise friends always remind me, not having children is no guarantee that those dreams would have been any closer to coming true. It's just that now I have an excuse--someone to blame.

And yet, it is also true that the majority of my life force goes to my children, my family, my husband. This from me, a Wellesley woman, a feminist, a career woman, and one who still believes that work, meaningful work, is the key to happiness in life. Or at least contentment. On some days that belief fills me with ambivalence. A feeling that I am being torn in two.

But I sit here tonight, after a perfect day, so grateful that in this life I got to be a mother.

I did not think I would get to. I was 33 and single with no man on the horizon, and I was not the kind of woman to go the test tube route. Though I could have seen myself packing up and teaching poor children in some god forsaken poverty-stricken nation. And I would have loved it.

I called my first son Theodore because to me, he is a gift from God. A gift I never thought I would have in this lifetime. He had been around for about two hours when I turned to Jonathan and said, "I want another one!"

"Let's wait a little and see how this goes," he said.

I still agonize about being a mother on some days. I resent that I have to shop and clean and pick people up and serve serve serve on some days. I am so smart, so educated, so ready to give to the world, I think. How did it come to this? Shopping for healthy vegetables on a Tuesday morning when my energy is high and my soul is ready to do something great. Sweeping the floor when I could be writing a great article about something fabulously interesting

But today I marveled. I marveled at my beautiful children and the joy they give me. Theo dashed into our room at the crack of dawn with a bag of gifts and cards and jumped into bed. Benji presented me with a letter he had written (transcribed of course). My husband made me breakfast and two pots of my favorite super strong espresso. We went to LACMA and saw the Pompeii exhibit and I told my boys all I knew and promised that someday I would take them to the real place, so that they could walk the streets of this buried city that had changed my life in so many ways.

And tonight I think that my boys and my husband are what make my life full. They make my heart sing. I love watching them when they sleep and seeing them stand like statues in the Pompeii exhibit. I love their curiousity about the tar pits and the way they smell when they nuzzle close. I love their sensitivity and their stubborness and their tiny perfect bodies.

And I think, as much as I have fled from the title, the label, of mother, it has brought me more joy than almost anything else. So today, I pause and recognize that. And I take a moment to thank all the mothers of this world, who do their best to love their children and do their best to give them everything they possibly can. Because in the end, I do believe it is mothers who make the world go round. Or people who act like mothers.

Bipasha, This One's For YOU!

Today I am reading over my mommy transcripts, editing them down for my book proposal. As I read them, some of them move me to tears. One woman I met was named Bipasha. She is American, the daughter of two Indian immigrants from Calcutta who moved to this country to make money and give their children a better life. Once their children (Bipasha and her brother) were grown, they moved back to Calcutta. Bipasha is an amazing woman: a film editor, an entrepreneur and businesswoman, and one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. She has two small children, is married to a hot cinematographer, and is trying to hold it all together, just like the rest of us. The only difference is her perspective. Although she is 100% American herself, she travels back to India frequently to see her parents, and sees children and motherhood through the eyes of a different culture, which perhaps for the first time feels gentler. Here is her quote:

"In Hinduism they believe children are Gods. I think up until the age of four they believe they are so innocent and pure and you know that they are the closest thing to a God on earth. They believe children are a reincarnation of God, and they treat them that way."

What would America be like if we treated children like Gods? Would we pay for better teachers and schools? Would we do a better job of saving the environment? Would we make sure all children had health care? Would we want mothers to be with their children more of the time? Would we value mothers more?