Another Day in the Country
Cooking for one
Contributing writer
Life is basically one series of adjustments after another — what you can do and not do. What you can wear and not wear. What you can eat and not eat. Where you can go and not go.
When you get it all figured out, it would be nice if it would stay that way indefinitely. Some things do stay for a while. Others are very fleeting.
I find myself in the strange position of eating things no one else likes. I plant things in the garden that even I only eat once in a blue moon. Nevertheless, I plant it, just in case the urge strikes. Take okra for instance.
I love fried okra. I also like gumbo soup even though I make it without chicken, shrimp, or bouillabaisse. My version of gumbo is really just vegetable soup with okra in it. It’s good, but when I make it, I have to make it for one because nobody else eats it.
Collard greens, Swiss chard, all of their green leafy relatives, I love once in awhile. I grow it in the garden, just in case I get the urge to eat it. Meanwhile, I have to keep cutting it back so that I have fresh greens — the chickens love it. My sister hates it — will not eat it. That means, if I’m cooking it, I’m cooking it for one.
Eggplant — there’s only a few dishes that include eggplant that I enjoy: dolma (that’s Greek) ratatouille (that’s French, I think). When my daughter was here visiting, we fetched an eggplant from the garden and she made eggplant sandwiches — something we used to do when she was a kid — with Swiss cheese on French bread, tomatoes, onions, and peppers lightly sautéed. Yummy. Other than that, I’m the only eggplant lover.
Onions is another garden staple. Luckily, Tooltime Tim was an onion lover; but my sister hates them. Same with garlic. She tends to favor leeks, which I’ve never grown in my garden. Maybe next year.
Usually, a common menu in a family is one of the bonding mechanisms. In my childhood family, my sister and I were 12 years apart and family menus adjusted and changed with the family members present. Add to the natural predilection of taste buds to certain foods, a 12-year time span during which my family became completely vegetarian, and you have quite a variance in favorite foods remembered from one’s childhood.
When my kids were little, we were in a taco phase. We ate some variation on that theme at least once a week. We also had the fruit-salad-on-Friday-night phase with chocolate cookies, and it couldn’t be just any chocolate cookie. It had to be the kind with a shiny chocolate crust covering soft chocolate cake. They now come fat-free and they aren’t the same.
Living 30 years on a college campus meant we were exposed to a variety of people and cultures. Greek salad with humus in pocket bread we learned to eat from our friend Renie who spent several years in Cyprus. When Surin and Amorjit came to study at the college, they were homesick for Indian food and I learned to make dal, curry, and raita over basmati rice. Andy shared his Mom’s bread pudding recipe one Thanksgiving when he couldn’t go home for the holidays. He stayed at our house that year and made bread pudding for Sunday breakfast. It became a standard treat in our household. My kids still love it, but they live far away.
Phyllis taught me how to make Crazy Cake — all stirred up in one pan. I made one last night. It’s a small cake, but I can’t eat the whole thing. What’s a body to do? Melvin brought his mother to my house to teach me to make Pancit, a noodle dish from the Philippines. Luckily, my sister likes Pancit, so she’ll come to dinner when I fix it.
My shopping basket looks like the United Nations when I buy groceries. Most of these ingredients are for dishes that I alone enjoy. Just me. Cooking for one on another day in the country.