Everyone has heard of stress eaters...well I'm a stress cooker. I prefer the term Pressure Cooker because I like the cartoon visual attached to it. This pot-type contraption with gauges and dials spinning out of control, steam escaping from the lid, a "run for your lives" aura about it. Yep, that sounds about right. I realized recently that I have been cooking an awful lot lately. Now here's an understatement: I have been under some stress for the last 12 months or so, the last couple of months especially.
Now not to say I haven't done my share of stress eating. I have. I do believe I'm more of a social eater. I can successfully diet for weeks and weeks but only if there is some kind of solitary confinement involved. Put me in a social situation and it's..cake? OKAY big piece? HELL YEAH! I was told once that I eat like I'm in a competition...and in one embarrassingly proud moment , after finishing a plate of ribs, the server came to he table said " the guys in the kitchen were betting you wouldn't be able eat all that". You lose bitches!
I love eating but I really enjoy cooking. I think I like it because there's a beginning, a middle and an end and the end =eating...You sit around and say what should we eat...what do we have in the house- the beginning. You chop and mix and marinate and fry, bake or boil -the middle . Then you eat and if all goes well you hear the "mmmm-ing" and the "I can't believe you made this"- the end.
I love the freedom of cooking but I am not a fan of baking (too much measuring ) although it is starting to grow on me...literally- like on my big ass.
I also love the predictability of cooking. To paraphrase a scene from the movie Julie & Julia (about a food blogger cooking her way through the Julia Child cookbook) I love the idea that no matter what is going on in the world I know that if I melt butter add some flour ... I can make a roux which can be a gravy or a wine sauce or a cheese sauce. There is great comfort in that for me.
Now because I can't really do anything medically to help my parents or my husband.... so I cook. Here is what the doctor ordered
Knee surgery- 12 bean soup with ham and kielbasa, chili (with too many peppers I was told) Potato and Ham and cheese soup.
Hip surgery - baked macaroni with chicken sausage meat balls and beans and greens with bacon.
For the various cancers - a couple variations of chicken soup, pasta zucchini and pepperoni sauce, chocolate zucchini bread. cracker crusted cod with bowtie pasta/ fall vegetables medley
Now add the new job stress Most recently, today in fact, I came home after being in lockdown at school. Because of a crazed neighbor with a house full of guns which he burned to the ground- I thought what anybody else would in my situation....FRIED CHICKEN
Cooking, to me, is a form of control. I visit my mom, who does not seem to be improving very much physically and not at all mentally. I try to talk to her and tell her how she has to get herself up off the couch. She says she will- but doesn't do it or won't do it....not without me anyway....I feel guilty because I can't be there to help her all the time...I just can't = PORK ROAST. I have a new job, which I really like, but it's new and it's different and it's quite a bit of work=SPAGHETTI SQUASH WITH MUSHROOMS AND SPINACH SAUTEED IN OLIVE OIL AND GARLIC TOPPED WITH FRESH MOZZARELLA. My newest stress is my sweet little cocker spaniel, Cosette, who will celebrate her 15 birthday this month, is clearly (sigh) on her way out..... three words
CHICKEN. POT. PIE.
SO many things are out of my control but I knew that if I added a few mini chocolate chips to my angel food cake with strawberry sauce, it would make it better ....and it did ...on so many levels.
Now I find it funny that I am not married to a "foodie". He likes to eat and I know he likes my cooking....though he never rarely says...but he is not a foodie ( I'm not sure I like that word) ...I do have a couple food lovers in my life and I think if I was married to either of them I would be huge HUGE....like piano case for a coffin huge... like has to be cut out of my apartment huge. So I guess that is the balance of life, the recipe if you will. Since cooking together is a very intimate thing... I have F- Buddies...the F being food, ya perverts.
But I do find it completely natural that my son is a cook by trade and an awesome cook at that. I guess it's in the blood....he knows exactly what to add to what and when. His motto bacon goes with everything....I have never been prouder. . I love that for the last few Christmas mornings we spent it making sauce and this past year BRACIOLE. (with bacon)-yum
I love food ! When I first thought about starting a blog I thought maybe I'd write about food. But instead, I began writing about my musicals. I actually have a great idea for a Food Network show. Pick a Broadway musical and I would make some dishes inspired by it....For example Sound of Music- crisp apple streudels and schnitzel with noodles. Get it ...a few of her favorite things? I would call it SOUND BITES....yesssssss!
It even works with movies ...I can make something with "garlic sliced with a razor blade so thin it liquefies in the pan" ala GOODFELLAS which has one of the best food related lines in movies..."Tomorrow we eat SANGwiches".
Food is connected with so many memories....I can remember the first time I had a shrimp cocktail...I think I was six. At that time of my life I was a scrawny kid. I (believe it or not) was seriously under weight. My grandfather called me "little one". My mom used to give me all kinds of things to help boost my weight...I don't think she read the small print because I think it said "may take 30 years to kick in"
Kick in it did with a vengeance...
Yes I will continue my love affair with food . I will cook my way through the hard times and situations that I have no control over. I cook for myself and for others and I am the boss for a change. I will begrudgingly watch my carbs and stick with whole wheat pastas and chicken and fish...on the weekdays and I will fill my weekends baking and creating new recipes because I can control this...if only this.
So as we wait to hear if my mom is healthy enough for chemo this week...again, out of my hands ....I'm thinking SEAFOOD BISQUE. I will bring her some and hopefully she will eat it and get stronger because she looks like she is wasting away. It's awful but it's not only because she is sick...as she says when you get older you lose your appetite....Seriously?...when does this happen? Does this also take 30 years to kick in---just sayin'
