"Culinary Dementia - It happened to me" A true story of one mother's struggle (On Lifetime, the Network for Women)

I used to be a wonderful cook, a culinary savant, I’d call myself. Back during my teens, when other kids were stirring powdered cheese into macaroni noodles, I was throwing together a flowerless cocoa torte with Irish cream sauce, as a snack between homework assignments. While my friends were growing pot, I had a bona fide herb garden of mini-clay pots full of oregano and sage sitting on the kitchen window sill.

Once a season, I’d organize a five course themed dinner with wine parings and flower garnishes for neighbors and extended family just to show off my culinary talents. I’d study cookbooks and magazines like Bon Appetit for weeks leading to the big event, sometimes even incorporating the wild game from my dad and brother’s hunting trips into my repertoire. “You haven’t LIVED until you’ve savored my filet of owl, braised in homemade plum wine with fresh haricot verts,” I’d say in a practiced Nathalie Dupree whipped cream drawl.

New Southern Cooking came on PBS every Saturday at 4 p.m. and Nathalie, a sophisticated, yet down to earth, 40-something blond was its host. She was a master of the kitchen obstacle course. While her hands beat, sautéed, chopped and basted her audience into a vicarious sweat, her mouth made sweet down home conversation about a Social Circle Historical Society restoration project. I could tell Nathalie had good breeding. While still in diapers (cloth, of course) she probably learned how to properly set a formal table for 12 and arrange hydrangeas, honeysuckles and fresh mint from her backyard into a royal presentation. By never missing her show, I covertly hoped some of her refinement would rub off on me, an awkward preteen who had little in common with her peers. Long after Paula Deen takes off her wig and retires to her single wide trailer in Albany, barefoot with long toenails, chin hair and a plug of snuff in her cheek, Nathalie, in her starched apron, will forever remain the icon of Southern class and savior faire.

But, I digress…

Whereas with practice, people normally improve their arts, for the past few years my culinary skills seem to have spiraled in the opposite direction. Where I once could’ve starred in an Iron Chef competition, I now have trouble with Chef Boyardee tab tops. I routinely have to apologize to my family for ruining the Hamburger Helper or scorching the chicken-n-stars soup. I can’t even open a can of Vienna Sausage without cutting my index finger and bleeding into the casings. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times, “Ewwww! Mom, you bled in these!”

“No, Honey, it’s mild Tabasco sauce,” I reassure. I’ve even had to buy new potholders because I keep setting them on fire.

Every time I enter my kitchen, I’m struck with a sort of dementia that mocks Alzheimer’s and has a few Parkinson’s symptoms thrown in for fun. (Who were Alzheimer and Parkinson, anyway? I hope I never have a disease named after me). The other day, I stood with a package of uncooked link sausage in my hand pondering whether to bake or microwave them, when James, my husband read my confusion and handed me the frying pan. Upon reconsidering, he mumbled something about a fire hazard, took it back and cooked the sausage himself.

An upside to my cooking handicap is that we save lots of money on groceries. I no longer spend hours creating dinner menus of dishes that call for 117 ingredients. I’ve discovered that hot dogs can be prepared numerous ways and Lucky Charms are a perfect side dish for most any entrée. Peanut butter and jelly can be spread not just onto sliced bread, but tortillas, hamburger buns, bananas, graham crackers, saltines and even playing cards, if you cover them up completely.

As with any weak link, others have picked up my cooking slack. Andrew, now does dinner preparation on Tuesdays and even made Darth Maults out of his Star Wars cookbook the other night. James often fires up the grill when he catches me heading to the kitchen to see about dinner. “No, Honey, I’ve got it covered. Now go back in the living room where it’s safe, NOW!” he warns with a look of fear in his eyes, as if I’ve unknowingly wandered out onto the ledge of a 12 story building or into the sites of a mother crocodile. We also eat out a lot. The kids and I both enjoy this. James regularly carries coupons in his wallet for Sonny’s, KFC, Pizza Hut and Applebee’s.

My mom also brings dinner quite often. She’s an exceptional cook, but has never learned to take a compliment. Growing up, our dinner table conversations would go like this.

Dad – “Great dinner, Susie. This is delicious!”

Mom – “You really think? I was disappointed in the way the roast turned out and the carrots are a soggy mess. Also, these biscuits are flat as pancakes. I could just cry.”

Dad – “You’re right. You should be ashamed passing this feces off for nourishment. Someone smack your mother…hard.”

I think my mom is a little disappointed that neither of her daughters carried on her cooking genes. I’ve become culinarily challenged and my sister Pamela doesn’t cook because she’s a vegetarian. Pamela and her two sons regularly graze on Bermuda grass in her front yard. It’s a big day when they mow the lawn. Will and Tom gather ‘round the dining table banging their forks and chanting “DINNER!!! DINNER!!!; as my sister ceremoniously empties the clippings bag onto a platter with all the pomp and circumstances of carving a turkey.

My brother-in-law Glenn is quite a carnivore, but is afraid to disobey Pamela and bring “murdered animal” as she calls it, into the house. As time goes by, he becomes more desperate for meat. I can see it in his eyes. When he looks at other people, he licks his lips, as if picturing them on a platter surrounded by parsley and cherry tomatoes. It’s kind of creepy. One day, I’m afraid he’ll snap and pull a Hannibal Lecter. And all the townspeople will feel guilty because they knew in the backs of their minds that it might happen, but no one uttered a word of warning. Newspaper reporters will ponder what could’ve been done to prevent the carnage. Local politicians will set up counseling centers and runaway shelters for family members of maniacal vegetarians.

But I digress…again. James is gone to Orlando for a business trip and I’m now left to feed the boys dinner. Should I chance trying to cook a frozen pizza? Will I remember to take it out of the box? Nah, too much to risk. How about Dairy Queen tonight? Look! I’ve even got a free blizzard coupon.

Second Grade Sex Ed

Disclaimer/Warning: If you
a) are uncomfortable reading about/discussing/thinking about the human body and procreation to the point of shrieking “EWWWWWW!” when the topic comes up…
b) have an unfounded sense of respect for the angelic life I’ve led….
c) are under the age of 13…
d) still think that babies come from storks, cabbage leaves or the Build a Baby Workshop…
You’ll want to exit this blog and peruse the writings of someone who never seems to have anything to say, but writes anyway, such as Victoria Osteen, Lisa Welchel from The Facts of Life, or Celine Dion.

With the legalities out of the way, my team of attorneys are now satisfied and I can continue with the blog entry.

The other day, Andrew, my eight year old son’s last day of second grade, I was horrified to learn that he knows about the “S” word. Yes, the three letter one that ends in “EX!” Yes, THAT “S” word. The biggie. Every parent’s one syllable nightmare.

As we were driving home from school, he let it slip as he was telling me about Taylor and Haven chasing him and David around the playground trying to kiss them. (Girls these days!!!! I was never so forward! But, that’s a whole ‘nuther blog entry.) The conversation went something like this…

Andrew: “We were all trying to play kick ball and the girls wouldn’t leave me and David alone. So, we took off running to hide behind the big tree by the fourth grade wing. When Taylor and Haven got to the tree, we kept dodging them, so they started pretending like they were having sex with the tree.”

Me: “WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!,”

Hearing that word come out of my supposedly innocent son’s mouth sent my naïve brain over the edge and my Saturn Vue swerving off Brookhaven Drive. I ran over three orange cones and side swiped the guy holding the “stop/slow” sign. (Those new neon green highway department vests don’t make the workers a bit more visible, especially to a panicked mom, who’s just seen her young son’s innocence crash and burn before her eyes.)

ME: “What did you just say?”

ANDREW: “Nothing!”

ME: ‘Don’t give me that. You know what you said.”

ANDREW: “I said they were kissing the tree.”

ME: “’Kissing’ is certainly NOT the verb that came out of your mouth and you know it.”

Too late for him to take it back. The “S” word was out there, hovering between the front and back seats, like a cloud of chokingly offensive flatulence that both Andrew and I wished he’d never released.

I admit that I’m naïve; most kids know more about sex by age seven than I probably did in high school (well, up until eleventh grade, anyway). I just wasn’t ready to go into any of this with Andrew. He was supposed to think of girls in the context of having cooties, playing Barbies, and painting their nails with glitter glue. He certainly shouldn’t be witnessing second grade pole dancing exhibitions on an elm tree.

As a mom, I pride myself on doing my “homework,” staying abreast (bad word choice) on every upcoming life stage before it even happens. However, in the car that day, I had no preparation whatsoever for talking sex with someone I’d given birth to, no database of knowledge to pull from. I searched my brain trying to retrieve some smidgeon of useful information, some guidance from The Blind Sighted Parents’ Guide to Talking Sex with Elementary School Offspring. But unfortunately that book hasn’t been written yet. Four clear options began forming in my head.

Should I …

A) say “That’s it, Son. I’m home schooling you and we’re becoming radical fundamentalists who grow all our own food, make our clothes and have no contact with the outside world except to sell our crops at the farmers’ market where you’ll be monitored every second. So, no making eyes at milk maids or feeling the melons.”

B) say “That’s great that you know about sex. Some of my fondest memories happened in the backseat of an ’89 Camaro*. Ahhh, those were the days.”

C) Go dig out my old Anatomy & Physiology texts from college and prepare for an in-depth lesson on procreation. Okay, who am I kidding? I never took A&P. The furthest I got in learning body parts was the hammer and the stamen and the anther and the Acchilles heel.

D) Swallow hard, veer back onto the road and immediately change the subject. “Hey, Andrew, I hear there’s a new episode of Drake and Josh on today.”

Turns out, my choice was ‘E” none of the above and then “D” just to make it through the drive home. Before jumping to any conclusions, I decided to do some investigative questioning to learn what Andrew knew about sex. I shouldn’t assume that just because he used the “S” word meant that he was ready to teach sex education to first graders.

While making dinner and contemplating how I’d discreetly pry Andrew’s level of sex knowledge from him without him dying of embarrassment, my husband James came in sweaty from running on the treadmill that he eventually broke. (How does one break a treadmill? Again, a whole ‘nuther blog entry) I immediately began blabbering about our son’s lost innocence exclaiming “He knows about S—E—X!!!” I had wrongly assumed that James would have the same panic attack I’d suffered. Instead, he chuckled, “Honey, he’ll ALWAYS know more than you think he does.”
“Oh, thanks, Babe. That’s reassuring.”

Experts (whoever they are) say that parents discuss sex with their children in much the same way it was approached with them by their parents. If this is true, then I was completely handicapped. Sex, procreation, body parts, none of that stuff was ever discussed in my household. I learned some from finding my dad’s stash of Playboys and from a book my mom gave me when I was in fourth grade. It was called Susie’s Babies. That was as far as my mom came to the sex talk. In the text, “Susie” was a squirrel who met a male squirrel (who the authors didn’t bother naming or maybe Susie was the kind of girl who didn’t bother getting her mates’ names). Then Susie became pregnant with a litter of squirrel-lets, or squirrel pups, or squirrelkinz or whatever you call them. The story chronicled Susie’s journey to motherhood. The only problem is that I'm not a squirrel.

The Susie’s Babies approach might have worked to teach some youngsters about what would happen to them and their own bodies one day, but it left me clueless and confused. First of all, my mother happens to be named Susie. That didn’t help things. I, with an IQ that barely breaks 100, wondered if perhaps we start out life as squirrels and morph into humans, like tadpoles and frogs, or caterpillars and butterflies. I had always loved Clusters Cereal. Perhaps that wasn't a coincidence. Then, there were all these terms in the book floating around with no definitions, like fallopian tubes, ovaries, testes, Missionary Position, bump-n-grind.

My sister Pamela saw me pondering over Susie’s Babies and decided that she’d better do the charitable thing and give it to me straight, based on her own knowledge. She told me EVERYTHING. At her vivid descriptions, I went pale and began to dry heave. I wondered how in the world any babies were ever born, being the result of such a vile and disgusting act. I just assumed that the whole thing was probably an accident. People would NEVER intentionally do something like that. They were probably just hugging and a part got loose and landed in the wrong place. That explanation satisfied my grossed-out nine year old mind and I rarely thought about sex again until Mr. ’89 Camaro* entered my life.

So back to June, 2009. That night, at bedtime, with lots of prayer and rehearsing under my belt, I entered Andrew’s bedroom and reminded him of our earlier conversation. His face changed into the expression of a trapped squirrel (not Susie, but perhaps one of her numerous offspring). “Andrew,” I began gently. “You mentioned ‘sex’ earlier. Just what do you know about it?”

As if he’d come straight from a Sunday school purity retreat, he repeated stoically, holding his breath, “I know that it’s wrong and I should never do it or talk about it.” Okay, that’s a start. “But, do you know what sex is?” I asked. “Well Mason talks about having sex and he always does this when he says sex.” Andrew’s demonstration of “THIS” was to thrust his hips back and forth like Elvis or Justin Timberlake. OMG, I wanted to laugh so hard, a horrified laugh, yet funny too. If Andrew was telling the truth, he didn’t know much, but got the general gist of things. The situation was slightly less worrisome than I’d thought, yet should still be monitored. I replied “Andrew, sex isn’t bad; God made our bodies and he made sex. But sex is only for married people, not for kids to know about, talk about and certainly not to act out on trees. Stay away from Taylor and Haven and Mason too. FOREVER. Okay?”

I have no idea if I handled the situation correctly. I’m sure it’ll come up again. Maybe I’ll ask my mom if she still has Susie’s Babies lying around. No, kidding. Yard rodents should not be used as models for teaching your kids about reproduction. That’s just wrong. I wonder why the author used squirrels. Why not wombats or pot bellied pigs or meerkats or PEOPLE!!!!! Hey, there’s a thought.

Right now I'm reading Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality - A Biblical Approach to Prepare Then for Life, By Jim Burns. I highly recommend it.

If any of you gentle readers (now I’m Miss Manners) have suggestions on approaching this delicate subject with your offspring, please drop me a hint, PRIVATELY. Or if you’d like to share an equally embarrassing story on the topic, I’d love to hear it and promise not to publish it.

* - Make and model of vehicle have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

Paw Prints on the Heart

My husband James, our two boys Andrew and Jack and I just finished watching the movie Marley and Me. Though the closing credits ended ten minutes ago, we’re still wiping tears and blowing noses with grief as if Marley, the family golden retriever, was a close friend. I think we can all relate to the film because dogs touch our hearts in a way that very few humans can. They love us unconditionally no matter what; hence the nickname “Man’s best friend.” Unlike our parents who burden us with expectations and guilt…and our children with their public meltdowns and back talk, dogs know only affection for their owners. Their main form of communication being face licks and tail wags. It’s been said time after time, whether we leave for five minutes to take out the garbage or for a two year tour of duty, our canine companions greet us upon return, with unbridled enthusiasm, having missed us whole-heartedly.

I grew up in a family that enjoyed the friendship and affection of numerous dogs through the years, mainly Springer Spaniels and Golden Retrievers. Let’s see if I can count them. We had three Scamps, Scooter, the rageful tennis ball freak, Goldie and her eleven puppies that were never officially named except Honey. Then there was Murphy, the kitten killer, Greta, the spoiled princess, Flash the bird dog, Boss, Honey’s puppy, Lamar and Pearl, Rob’s two hounds, Molly, the wild, Lucky, the rescued fight dog, Sparky, who loved to sit on my lap, Pancake, the transient and Rebel the loyal bird dog and his two German Shorthair sisters Dixie and Chika.

In my family, dogs were royalty and children were necessary evils in creating a legacy. My father’s preference for canine company was no secret. He was, and still is, at his best with a dog at his side. That’s okay. I tend to prefer him that way as well.

As an adult and a mom myself, I’ve been lucky to share my home with two of the biggest, furriest, most loveable low IQ’d dogs one could have the good fortune of knowing. A couple of Anatolian Shepherd mixes named Norman and Kelly. While Norman is now watching over us from that great dog park in the sky, Kelly has a strenuous daily activity of waking up, going to the bathroom, eating, drinking, napping, and holding our floor rugs down. At nearly eleven years old, she’s more often horizontal than vertical, but still finds the energy to receive table scraps at mealtime, and a generous routine of head scratches and petting throughout the day.

When Norman was alive, he and Kelly weighed 250 pounds collectively; a third of that was fur. They were (and are) tall enough to snatch thawing steaks off the kitchen counter without straining.People call them miniature horses. Children ask to ride them.

Being true to their breeds, Norman and Kelly have herded us around the yard for years now, leaning and pushing us in whatever direction they were heading, often knocking Andrew and Jack down like bowling pins. The breeder told James that they were herd guardian dogs, sort of like the sheepdog in the Looney Tunes cartoons that beat up on Ralph the coyote each day. While no wolf has ever dared set paw on our property, I have to wonder what Kelly would do if someone were to break into the house. I think she’d sniff the intruder for treats first, lick his hand, then nudge him for a head scratch. Hopefully her sheer size would frighten any ill-intenders away.

After being the mom of Norman and Kelly, I don’t think I could settle for a small dog, especially not one of those toy breeds that could easily get lost between the couch cushions or be sucked down the bathtub drain. I don’t consider those to truly be dogs. They’re more like hyper-caffeinated, furry ping-pong balls with attitude problems.

My neighbors have a deaf dachshund named Hershey and a four-legged cotton ball with PMS named Muffy. The “Yappers” as we refer to them, bark all day long, especially when we’re outdoors. They’ve spoiled picnics, basketball, baseball and soccer games, car washings and gardening activities. I’ve yelled a few profane yaps of my own back at them, only to realize that Jane and John, their owners could hear my insults (but don’t seem to notice their dogs’ earsplitting annoyances)

If I’d known that these rats with vocal chords would be living next to me spoiling my family’s attempts at fresh air and sunshine, we might have purchased another house, one far, far away. They should’ve been disclosed in the neighborhood information, just like a sex offender. I secretly hope that one day, mild-mannered Kelly will get hungry for a canine snack and gobble up little Hershey and Muffy, rhinestone collars and all.

For now, I’ll just focus on appreciating my gentle giant of a dog, whose barking offends no one. But watch where you step in the backyard. Her waste makes cow patties seem like petite veggie burgers. But, that’s another entry for another day.

If you haven’t hugged your dog today, what are you waiting for? It may just do you more good than you realize. Thanks Marley for the reminder.