24.7

Thanks SO MUCH to all of you for all of your wonderful advice, suggestions and support about my ongoing headaches. All of you were so helpful and I was really touched that you would take the time with something so…unsexy. ChickenMan, you helped me understand what was going on in a new way. (And BTW everybody, check out his blog - GREAT pics.)

Megan is here, we are having a wonderful time, and we are hoping that she will become a (somewhat) permanent member of the household. She’s helping out a huge amount, among other things driving everybody hither and yon (Soccer Mom Megan). She’s helping out with the cooking too, which is challenging for me since I love to do it so much and am such a foodie.

But everything she has made has been wonderful (best stroganoff I’ve ever had), and I know Richard wants me to do less, so I am looking at as another opportunity to learn about giving up control. It’s a challenging lesson. Following is Megan’s transcript of our menu-planning session on Saturday (I plan menus and shopping a week ahead - best way to keep the family eating healthy food at home). Richard stayed out of it, but we would occasionally hear a snicker from the other room.

Me (Megan): Let me make some good food for you… I’m thinking Italian beef…
Amy: Oh, wonderful. What ingredients do we need to get?
Me: Well, we need salt, pepper, oregano, basil, four cans of beef broth…
Amy: Oh no, we can’t do beef broth, there’s so much bad stuff in beef broth, let’s switch it out with chicken broth. (Amy inserts here: in my defense there seems to be MSG in ALL beef broth and I don’t want to trigger a migraine)
Me: Mmkay. Chicken broth. Ok, and then we need onion salt.
Amy: Onion salt? I’m not so sure about that…
Me: Hrmph. We need onion salt. And then we need dried parsley.
Amy: DRIED PARSLEY IS TEH DEVIL! WE ARE NOT LETTING THAT HERETIC STUFF INTO OUR HOUSE! YOU MIGHT AS WELL CUT UP SOME TOILET PAPER AND PUT IT IN YOUR DISH, OR DRIED GRASS OR SOMETHING!
Me: We need dried parsley.
Amy: I can get you some fresh parsley.
Me: No, that will bring my spices out of balance. The recipe calls for dried parsley. It’s the best part of the dish.
Amy: Oh god, this dish is going to be HORRIBLE if the best part of it is dried parsley.
Me: Fuck you (said with all the love and patience in the world)
Amy: He he he
Me: And then we need garlic powder.
Amy: No! We have fresh garlic, that’s better.
Me: No, we need garlic POWDER!
Amy: We don’t even have garlic powder, it’s so much better fresh.
Me: I put garlic powder on everything, it’s the spice of life.
Amy: No, no, no
Me: Then we need bay leaves. Do you have a fresh bay leaf shrubbery bush tree in your back yard, or is dry bay leaves ok?
Amy: Oh we totally have bay leaves, of course we do!
Me: Of course… and then we need italian-style salad dressing mix, cayenne pepper, and 5 pounds rump roast.
Amy: Why aren’t we using chuck?
Me: Because the recipe says rump roast, just like it says ONION SALT, DRIED PARSLEY AND GARLIC POWDER! And I need my recipe to be authentic, because if we mess with the spices it it’ll bring it out of balance and it’ll taste wrong!
Amy: Where is your sense of adventure, you’re 32 years old, it’s time for you to step outside the box.
Me: (goes on a rant about how I will customize other foods but not this dish because THE SPICES, damnit)
Amy: Fine, we can do the onion salt and garlic powder (reluctant), but we’re NOT using dried parsley. Why don’t you just go out in the back yard and pick some grass or something, and dry it. That’s what they do, you know, I asked them and they told me. That’s how they make dried parsley.
Me: Grr.
Amy: Just ask (mutual friend who is a major foodie) what he thinks about dried parsley.
Me: Oh I’m so gonna

And (mutual friend) answered by making lewd and rude suggestions about what we could do with dried parsley.

More later - xoAmy