“Those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it.”

Leftovers are not my plate of dinner (lunch, breakfast, afternoon tea….). There are people I know who take great pride in cooking enough so that it makes two dinners and a lunch. No matter how much I loved something at lunch, chances are that I will not love it at dinner. So cooking in quantities isn’t my thing either.

My mom was brilliant at dealing with food in the household in general. She was a master at the art of freeze and thaw and at dressing up leftovers well enough to disguise their original intent, aside from being an awesome cook to begin with. Maybe because she had three picky kids to feed, she had some fantastic ideas to turn anything into a taste fest. And it didn’t help that the kids were picky in different ways. Also, one of her beliefs is that eating the same thing for two meals the same day isn’t good for your stomach. So we’d see the leftover turn up maybe a day later. My two sisters always seemed involved in some sort of health kick (the younger one especially) so the food had to be healthy. And I was just your regular pain-in-just-every-possible-place feeding nightmare to any mom.

Her recurring nightmare was being the mom in a coastal culture family where everyone worshipped seafood, except her middle one. After a few years in toddler-kindergarten phase of trying to hide the fish in rice and veggies and curry, only to have me promptly spit it out, she eventually backed out of trying to get me to eat it, though it’s in my memory so she must have tried pretty hard. On a related completely bizarre note, the smell of pomfret, myfamily’s favourite fish, frying, is one of my favourite smells in the world. Maybe that cousin of mine was on to something when he said I could be an excellent example for the word ‘weirdo’.

So now this meant the rest of the family wanted fish all the time and I’d gag if I saw it anywhere near it. So she was forced to prepare something seperate for me. And mom being mom, had to make sure my meal was as home-cooked as the rest of the meal. I can honestly say I never had a microwaved meal of any sort ever and didn’t get permission to eat anything from plastic or cans until I was about fourteen. And then only because I could put a pot on the stove and make it for myself and the only way to stop me would be to throw away cooked food. Which  brings me to another of mom’s principles, do not throw away food at all costs. There are people starving on the streets.

For the longest time, she made sure we had the fresh food, and she ate the leftovers, maybe shared with Pop (he didn’t care what he ate as long as she cooked it, he loves her cooking). Because of principle three, growing kids need good, fresh, nutritious food. Unless new life had been infused into the leftovers by say, adding vegetables to it, or making cutlets, it wouldn’t show up anywhere near us.

I get up, go to work and come home. My husband is a very good cook and is more than willing to cook most of the time. I love food but I find myself too dead at the end of the day. I’d happily eat cereal at that point. If I had one kid like my sisters, let alone like me, I might be climbing the wall. How did she do it? I don’t think I’d have the inclination even if I was a stay-at-home mom, which she became after I was born.

All I know is that after all the grief I’ve given her over food, I dread to think of what’s going to happen to me when I’m wearing the mom shoes. Because on e of my beliefs is what goes around, comes around. There’s no way to eat around that one.

- The title of this post isn’t my original statement. I don’t know who said it and I don’t stake any claim on it -

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Readers digest
• The Mom connection
• Spice is nice
• Fast Food Tarnation! A Rant (With a Recipe)

~ by summerlightning on August 21, 2007.