The JOY of Cooking?

Is anyone out there as sick of cooking as I am? I’m trying to eat carefully here in the new year but my God it’s a lot of work. Chopping up a butternut squash is harder than anything Tony's nephew Christopher ever did in the back rooms of Satriale’s if you get the reference. And peeling a mango and cutting it into edible pieces? It’s like peeling an elephant’s eyeball and then trying to dice it. I mean shouldn’t there be some sort of tool?This week I made enough mouth-watering entrées, soups and salads to feed an army, and all for a husband who won’t even sit down to eat anymore. The man is getting odd no doubt. His approach to a meal: get it down and move on to the next thing which for him is some left-brain project like Sudoku or the world’s most difficult crossword puzzle. Even when I’ve expended the last scraps of energy making Crab Cakes with Mango Relish or Slow Cooked Lamb and Fresh Thyme Stew I can’t get him to actually sit at the table with me …. Ok sure they’re from Weight Watcher’s kitchens instead of The Silver Gourmet’s but they’re great.Last night I served this whole fisherman’s delight of a spread with Garlic Steamed Spinach and Toast Points and I don’t know Fetal Tomatoes or some such and the only way I could get Old Dave to do something other than stand like a horse at a trough was to use On Demand to call up The Sopranos on the tube. All it took was offering him the episode where Ralphie gets his head cut off and he was rooted to his seat while he chewed. (Wait so where are those old TV tables? I think maybe the good old 1950s are coming back to haunt me...!)

Saucy!

Give me the saucy people in life. The other day at a cocktail party my Fun Bun fell off - it happens - and the two guys beside me looked down at it in alarm. “Whoops! Just my fake hair!” said I. “Good to know,” said one. “We wuz gittin’ ready to stomp it,” said his friend.Then the other night I met a waiter with a similarly breeziness. I had just surreptitiously sprinkled some no-cal powdered drink mix into my water, then tried hiding the packet under my dinner plate on account of the general tackiness involved in bringing outside food products into a restaurant. “I saw that,” the waiter whispered as he brushed past me. Then, a little while later he caught me diluting  my mojito with big splashes from that gallon bottle of sparkling water they make you buy if you want even a little sparkling water.“What's this?!” he shouted in fake outrage.“Hey! I paid for this water!” I said back in my own fake-mad way. "That's  Paulie from the The Sopranos when he comes to pick up his mom after her lunch out with her old-lady pals, remember? And one of them starts stuffing all the leftovers into her purse?  ‘Hey, those are my Ma’s rolls!’ Paulie shouts and snatches them our of her hands. Remember that?”He remembered it. Everybody watched The Sopranos, even just on A& E where they dub over the bad words. I loved all those characters and speaking of staying jaunty, here's old Paulie Walnuts now visiting Christopher in the hospital and explaining  how Purgatory works. Good message for the Sabbath maybe eh?[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObglF8WUsWM]