Food: The Way We Eat

[lsanderson]

Food: The Way We Eat
A New Lease on Lunch
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN

At a certain point in my 16th year of motherhood, my two sons hurtling out the door to school bearing their 2,400th turkey and ham sandwiches, I began to wonder if history had ever recorded a death from maternal culinary despair.

Like many moms, I started parenthood with noble ambitions, buying a little white grinder to make my own baby food from organic fruits and vegetables so my children would begin life nutritionally pure. I think back on this whenever Jacob and Gabe, who are now 16 and 13, pop a bag of Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn with fake butter into the microwave.

I am a gastronomic fallen woman. My descent was gradual and insidious, spurred on by chronic disorganization, too many to-do lists, work demands and the glorious but maddening differences between my two kids. Jacob lives for “Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!” on NPR; Gabe, for “Halo 3.” Jacob, a picky but basically healthful eater, loves a good steak. Gabe, an adventurous eater and future Top Chef, is a budding vegetarian whose bar mitzvah speech compared animal sacrifice in the Book of Leviticus to the “gross and disgusting” meat industry of Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation.”

Gazing at the carnage in my kitchen — Freon-infused fish sticks in the freezer and a three-of-everything pantry (My pantry, myself, I thought grimly) — I realized that desperate measures were needed. I yearned to infuse imagination into my humdrum culinary routine and to cultivate a state of mindfulness about the contents of our refrigerator, all while taking advantage of the prodigious bounty of my adopted California home. I began to fantasize about redemption, about midlife second chances. About Alice. Alice Waters. More

Comments

[ginahelen.livejournal.com]

LOL! I haven't finished the article -- don't have time have to run back upstairs quick -- but oh my ghod, I can very much relate to "maternal culinary despair", "Like many moms, I started parenthood with noble ambitions, buying a little white grinder to make my own baby food from organic fruits and vegetables so my children would begin life nutritionally pure." and, "I am a gastronomic fallen woman." !!