It Could Take Some Time...
...but I'm not going anywhere. I've been cooking for one man or another over 4 decades and, because I'm a sweetie, I go out of my way to make the food I serve as healthful as possible. That may mean that I serve a nice salad, it may mean that I trim all of the fat off of a hunk-o-meat. Whatever it means, it's absolutely ALWAYS in my mind as I do my best to prepare food that not only tastes good but is always served with educated nutritional speculation. I studied this stuff in college, I'm not a beginner. I'm also a food artist because preparing some meals is absolutely an endeavor in artistry. Instead of pleasing the eyes or ears, the food artist pleases the palate and perfumes the nose.
I started when I was 12, cooking for my 5 younger litter-mates. By the time I was13 or so, I was good at serving a vegetable, meat and a starch. At that time, my little mind would come up with dinners like fish sticks, green beans and macaroni and cheese. By the time I married at 18, I was actually using recipes and I started making the good stuff, like lasagna, stuffed peppers or country fried steaks.
I developed good cooking habits early on in a fruitless attempt to please various husbands. (They were all my own, I don't do other women's stray dudes.) I told myself that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach". I tried to be a good little wifey-poo and one thing I had to do was cook...and I loved it. It was the only chore that wasn't robotic. I could express myself through cooking and I still take pride in it. One of the basic tenets of my cooking has always been to refrain from cooking high fat breakfasts but since most men like a nice breakfast, I would always treat them to a tasty breakfast once a week, usually on the weekends. I've spent enough time in the South to learn how to make some of the best, but most unhealthful, breakfasts I've ever served. Sausage gravy and biscuits come to mind. I got the recipe from my grandmother who was Southern and one helluva cook. Easy enough, you brown the ground sausage and then, without draining the grease, you make the gravy out of the drippings. That goes against all of my food serving rules, but it was good, and I've never met a man who didn't like it, so I didn't mind an occasion dish of fat gravy.
When I was married to the moral thug (Rick Kelso), I did my best to cook healthy foods for him. I tried to cook only meatless foods but he didn't like them. His only vegetable intake was peas one night and corn the next. Pea, corn, pea, corn, pea, corn. He wasn't too concerned about his diet so I just did the best I could within the confines of his delicate tongue. I seem to remember caring about him to some extent so I did my best to take care of him. Now I'm annoyed at me.
By the end of our marriage, all of my vegetable pushing penchants and grease draining proclivities were turning into anti-freeze fancies and body disposal intrigues. I was suddenly exposed to the actual reckoning that could, unchecked, lead one human being to expunge another human being's life. At the time, I would have felt rather justified so imagine my surprise when, years later, I told my daughter about some of my least commendable mind trips of 2005 and she responded negatively. She said she actually would have been quite cross and piqued had I ever acted out any of the fantasies du that jour. Maybe because I looked at the ideations as simply purgative, nothing harmful, I took the thoughts lightly. But the way I looked at it combined with the fact that it all happened years ago made the entire conversation just that, conversation. But my daughter took it seriously and told me that she would not have understood or agreed with me had I harmed my ex. ME!!! She would NOT have understood. That concept was, and remains, shocking to me. She never even liked the cretin. I thought she, of all people, would have been my prison visiting supporter. Go figure.
Anyway, if I had it to do all over, I would have never drained the grease out of foods. I would have left it there to clog up every artery in that Scaramouch's body. By the time he decided to leave, he would have been lucky if Viagra worked on his anemic penis. So, in memory of that huge blunder of mine, I am cooking a bit differently these days. Show up uninvited for breakfast and you'll get a good one, 7 days a week.
Today I fried up some sausage patties (cheap ones, with a lot of pork fat) and then, without draining the grease, I cracked 3 eggs into that grease and scrambled them up. There was so much grease that I thought I'd have to drain left-over grease out of the pan before putting it on the plate. But eggs, I learned, are funny, they absorb every drop of fat in the pan. By the time they were done, they had absorbed at least a quarter cup of grease. I had Rice Krispies.
I started when I was 12, cooking for my 5 younger litter-mates. By the time I was13 or so, I was good at serving a vegetable, meat and a starch. At that time, my little mind would come up with dinners like fish sticks, green beans and macaroni and cheese. By the time I married at 18, I was actually using recipes and I started making the good stuff, like lasagna, stuffed peppers or country fried steaks.
I developed good cooking habits early on in a fruitless attempt to please various husbands. (They were all my own, I don't do other women's stray dudes.) I told myself that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach". I tried to be a good little wifey-poo and one thing I had to do was cook...and I loved it. It was the only chore that wasn't robotic. I could express myself through cooking and I still take pride in it. One of the basic tenets of my cooking has always been to refrain from cooking high fat breakfasts but since most men like a nice breakfast, I would always treat them to a tasty breakfast once a week, usually on the weekends. I've spent enough time in the South to learn how to make some of the best, but most unhealthful, breakfasts I've ever served. Sausage gravy and biscuits come to mind. I got the recipe from my grandmother who was Southern and one helluva cook. Easy enough, you brown the ground sausage and then, without draining the grease, you make the gravy out of the drippings. That goes against all of my food serving rules, but it was good, and I've never met a man who didn't like it, so I didn't mind an occasion dish of fat gravy.
When I was married to the moral thug (Rick Kelso), I did my best to cook healthy foods for him. I tried to cook only meatless foods but he didn't like them. His only vegetable intake was peas one night and corn the next. Pea, corn, pea, corn, pea, corn. He wasn't too concerned about his diet so I just did the best I could within the confines of his delicate tongue. I seem to remember caring about him to some extent so I did my best to take care of him. Now I'm annoyed at me.
By the end of our marriage, all of my vegetable pushing penchants and grease draining proclivities were turning into anti-freeze fancies and body disposal intrigues. I was suddenly exposed to the actual reckoning that could, unchecked, lead one human being to expunge another human being's life. At the time, I would have felt rather justified so imagine my surprise when, years later, I told my daughter about some of my least commendable mind trips of 2005 and she responded negatively. She said she actually would have been quite cross and piqued had I ever acted out any of the fantasies du that jour. Maybe because I looked at the ideations as simply purgative, nothing harmful, I took the thoughts lightly. But the way I looked at it combined with the fact that it all happened years ago made the entire conversation just that, conversation. But my daughter took it seriously and told me that she would not have understood or agreed with me had I harmed my ex. ME!!! She would NOT have understood. That concept was, and remains, shocking to me. She never even liked the cretin. I thought she, of all people, would have been my prison visiting supporter. Go figure.
Anyway, if I had it to do all over, I would have never drained the grease out of foods. I would have left it there to clog up every artery in that Scaramouch's body. By the time he decided to leave, he would have been lucky if Viagra worked on his anemic penis. So, in memory of that huge blunder of mine, I am cooking a bit differently these days. Show up uninvited for breakfast and you'll get a good one, 7 days a week.
Today I fried up some sausage patties (cheap ones, with a lot of pork fat) and then, without draining the grease, I cracked 3 eggs into that grease and scrambled them up. There was so much grease that I thought I'd have to drain left-over grease out of the pan before putting it on the plate. But eggs, I learned, are funny, they absorb every drop of fat in the pan. By the time they were done, they had absorbed at least a quarter cup of grease. I had Rice Krispies.
posted by Meg Kelso | 9:24 AM
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