Declared Redundant
I should have seen it coming. Why didn't I? A half-century of living up close and very personal to a single individual, however charming that person may be, might lead to the kind of ennui that would itself lead inevitably to what...a kind of separation of the mind, and desires? A stupor of boredom? In one fell swoop, relegated to minor support role. What I get for finding comfort in persisting in thinking of myself as indispensable.
Who has always catered to his every whim? Why, moi. His every wish my command. Well, almost. But haven't I always taken such pleasure in providing for him the sensual pleasures? Including, notably, cooking and baking for His Gastronomic Delight everything he has always held dear, from nostalgia-induced cooking straight out of Eastern Europe, to breads and pastries and even (shudder) deep-fried doughnuts.
Perhaps I should start at the very beginning. Almost the beginning, say about four years after our marriage, when we became alerted to some very distinct hormonal changes signalling our first pregnancy. When, it seemed, overnight, I became violently reactive to some of the ordinary things we shared pleasure in. Take coffee, for example, I could no longer even abide the odour of it wafting through the morning kitchen.
And meat of any description? Forget it. Used to be he, unskilled in the kitchen, would do some of what I'd done previously; which is to say, cook up kidneys and liver for our then little dog which we had together loved and lavished attention on. I'd have to lock myself in the furthest room of the house in a futile attempt to escape the gag-inducing odours of cooking meat.
Three childbirths and fifty-three years later I've never regained my taste for coffee, ever. That was our first separation, if you will; post-childbearing years he drank coffee, I drank tea, and never the twain did exchange. Still, I've been a faithful housemate and kitchen illusionist, preparing for him all that his heart might desire. And I've always enjoyed baking yeast goods, including breads.
What then, might explain my beloved's abandonment of my offerings, in favour of himself undertaking bread-baking? Yes, it's true, our younger son bakes his own breads by hand, as his mother does. His older brother acquired a bread-making machine and with its inspiring co-operation also bakes bread. Our daughter, the middle child, is an experienced hand with baking, including yeast doughs.
But he, their father, he'd never had to do anything in our commodious, well-equipped kitchen. That same kitchen that has somehow managed to shrink in workspace, and which equipment has developed a habit of migrating from some of its long-established places of rest. It's kind of a misery, looking about frantically when you're in a hurry, for your favourite cooking and baking utensils. Believe me.
And then there's the truly peculiar timing he favours. Like starting a bread at, for example, eleven in the evening, so it's scheduled to rest, and pound and mix and rise, finally bake, in the wee hours of the morning. Even sometimes starting the process earlier, say seven, directly after dinner, musing over a recipe, piling on the ingredients, setting the thing and waiting, waiting, waiting.
Oh, I'll admit there's a certain amount of theatre and entertainment in the process. Not that I gloated, not entirely, when his first two experiments in bread making - using the quite simple recipes that came in a small booklet with the machine he bought - failed, miserably. I had murmured to him that it seemed to me that the amount of liquid was insufficient to the dry measure. Ergo, an inedible lump.
Why would I take pleasure in his pain? So I did not, but rather commiserated with him, and sought to encourage him. Stupid recipe, I said. And guess what? It really was. He telephoned the 1-800 help-line of the machine's manufacturer and a rather sheepish voice at the other end informed him that the recipe had indeed been incorrectly printed. The liquid measure out by 75%. Hah!
So the following endeavours met with success, and he beamed with pleasure. I even hovered with him, fascinated, as he opened the door on top of the device and we watched the rhythmic slapping of the two little flanges busily 'kneading' the dough. Good theatre, indeed. I did hazard my opinion that it seemed to me that when I made my own dough by hand, it was far less onerous, anxiety-producing, and time-consuming.
Nothing I would say, however, would dissuade him from further adventures. He baked French bread, and he baked sour-dough bread. And, he vowed, he would undertake to bake a dense, rough, seed-laden, and white-flour-forsaking bread to suit my taste. He did. And it was far more than credible, it was downright good-tasting. His trips now to the local bulk food store for exotic types of flour and other ingredients are numerous.
I've downloaded, at his request, various types of recipes for him from the Internet, to augment those our older son sent along via email. He's on a roll.
Who has always catered to his every whim? Why, moi. His every wish my command. Well, almost. But haven't I always taken such pleasure in providing for him the sensual pleasures? Including, notably, cooking and baking for His Gastronomic Delight everything he has always held dear, from nostalgia-induced cooking straight out of Eastern Europe, to breads and pastries and even (shudder) deep-fried doughnuts.
Perhaps I should start at the very beginning. Almost the beginning, say about four years after our marriage, when we became alerted to some very distinct hormonal changes signalling our first pregnancy. When, it seemed, overnight, I became violently reactive to some of the ordinary things we shared pleasure in. Take coffee, for example, I could no longer even abide the odour of it wafting through the morning kitchen.
And meat of any description? Forget it. Used to be he, unskilled in the kitchen, would do some of what I'd done previously; which is to say, cook up kidneys and liver for our then little dog which we had together loved and lavished attention on. I'd have to lock myself in the furthest room of the house in a futile attempt to escape the gag-inducing odours of cooking meat.
Three childbirths and fifty-three years later I've never regained my taste for coffee, ever. That was our first separation, if you will; post-childbearing years he drank coffee, I drank tea, and never the twain did exchange. Still, I've been a faithful housemate and kitchen illusionist, preparing for him all that his heart might desire. And I've always enjoyed baking yeast goods, including breads.
What then, might explain my beloved's abandonment of my offerings, in favour of himself undertaking bread-baking? Yes, it's true, our younger son bakes his own breads by hand, as his mother does. His older brother acquired a bread-making machine and with its inspiring co-operation also bakes bread. Our daughter, the middle child, is an experienced hand with baking, including yeast doughs.
But he, their father, he'd never had to do anything in our commodious, well-equipped kitchen. That same kitchen that has somehow managed to shrink in workspace, and which equipment has developed a habit of migrating from some of its long-established places of rest. It's kind of a misery, looking about frantically when you're in a hurry, for your favourite cooking and baking utensils. Believe me.
And then there's the truly peculiar timing he favours. Like starting a bread at, for example, eleven in the evening, so it's scheduled to rest, and pound and mix and rise, finally bake, in the wee hours of the morning. Even sometimes starting the process earlier, say seven, directly after dinner, musing over a recipe, piling on the ingredients, setting the thing and waiting, waiting, waiting.
Oh, I'll admit there's a certain amount of theatre and entertainment in the process. Not that I gloated, not entirely, when his first two experiments in bread making - using the quite simple recipes that came in a small booklet with the machine he bought - failed, miserably. I had murmured to him that it seemed to me that the amount of liquid was insufficient to the dry measure. Ergo, an inedible lump.
Why would I take pleasure in his pain? So I did not, but rather commiserated with him, and sought to encourage him. Stupid recipe, I said. And guess what? It really was. He telephoned the 1-800 help-line of the machine's manufacturer and a rather sheepish voice at the other end informed him that the recipe had indeed been incorrectly printed. The liquid measure out by 75%. Hah!
So the following endeavours met with success, and he beamed with pleasure. I even hovered with him, fascinated, as he opened the door on top of the device and we watched the rhythmic slapping of the two little flanges busily 'kneading' the dough. Good theatre, indeed. I did hazard my opinion that it seemed to me that when I made my own dough by hand, it was far less onerous, anxiety-producing, and time-consuming.
Nothing I would say, however, would dissuade him from further adventures. He baked French bread, and he baked sour-dough bread. And, he vowed, he would undertake to bake a dense, rough, seed-laden, and white-flour-forsaking bread to suit my taste. He did. And it was far more than credible, it was downright good-tasting. His trips now to the local bulk food store for exotic types of flour and other ingredients are numerous.
I've downloaded, at his request, various types of recipes for him from the Internet, to augment those our older son sent along via email. He's on a roll.
Labels: Personally Dedicated, Whoops
posted by Pieface @ 6:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home