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A cookie and a cuppa
I figure in our fifty-five years of marriage I’ve probably prepared about sixty thousand meals. It’s just a rough guess. I could never know for sure and I did factor in the possible number of restaurant meals, family meals I didn’t prepare, take-away meals and skipped meals (not too many of those, let me tell you). Anyway, these days, when I’m faced with yet another meal to prepare, I don’t get as excited for the process as I did in the early days of our marriage. I feel as if I have truly “been there, done that, got the T-shirt”. I remember visiting my parents, when they were in their eighties and wondered why Mom’s meals seemed to be “lacking” in that certain something. Dad quietly told me “Sometimes we just have a cup of tea, some toast and a few cookies for dinner.” Being the kindhearted person I am, I let him know I didn’t think that was really acceptable. To say the least, I was a bit horrified, “What next? Cat food on crackers?” I couldn’t wrap my head around tea, toast and cookies being a meal! And here I am. I’m thinking about all of my Judgy McJudginton moments and trying to imagine just how many meals my mom would have stirred up over the sixty-plus years they were married. Keeping in mind Mom cooked not only for Dad and all of us, she also didn’t hesitate to offer a seat at the dining table for just about anybody who needed to be fed and happened to show up at mealtime. Is it any wonder their meals, in those later years, looked a whole lot like a bedtime snack? Mom was just tired of meal preparations and then the cleanup after. She’d paid her dues.
Anyway, here we are, LOML and I. I’m at the point where I find myself thinking a cup of tea, a piece of toast and a couple of cookies looks a whole lot more appealing than a roasted something with three veg and potatoes along with a dessert. Honestly, there are days when I think I just can’t be bothered with all of chopping, stirring, mixing, dicing, seasoning, baking, roasting, frying, boiling, blanching, tossing and microwaving. Right now, it’s on those particular days LOML and I aren’t afraid to go out to a local restaurant or pick up a take-away meal. If my parents were still alive they would have been a bit horrified by all of that. They didn’t often go out to eat. They could well afford to do so, but Mom, in particular, thought going to a restaurant was a waste of time and money. She wouldn’t have hesitated to tell us, “You never know what they put in the food.” Or, “I could cook that at home.” Mom and Dad were Depression kids. They were the first generation of their families to live in Canada. They arrived with a “waste not want not” mentality. Believe me when I say nothing went to waste in our home when it came to food. Our mom was a very good cook and knew how to stretch ingredients without compromising nutrition, taste or appeal. She knew a lot about nutrition. She was an early adopter. We were eating yoghurt and tofu before those items became “a thing”. And, as it turned out, she was also very skilled at brewing a strong cuppa and always let the toast cool a bit before putting butter on it. But there was a “tell” when meal preparation just became a chore. The Durning kids all noticed our parents’ kitchen pantry, where there had been a cookie tin full of homemade cookies and squares, one day was a stash of cellophane sleeves of factory-made cookies. The baking all but stopped. The canning and preserving ceased and the freezer was just a place to keep their ice cream.
These days I often sit with my cup of coffee (I never was a tea drinker) and wonder if LOML and I are headed along the same path. Will we become the couple who lives on toast, cookies, tea and, occasionally, an orange or banana just to say we were healthminded and want to keep the scurvy at bay? I could see it happening. I’m not a big fan of sweet desserts, but I wouldn’t say “no” to a nice piece of toast made from fresh, homemade bread with a little bit of marmalade, also homemade. And there I go throwing a wrench into the dinner works. If I’m going to bake bread and bubble up a batch of marmalade, I might as well make a batch of meatballs with gravy and mashed potatoes as a side.
I might not be ready to hang up the apron, yet.
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