I was happy last night in the bungalow kitchen, while Julie over at The Julie/Julia Project was in tears. If it’s any consolation to her, failure, in general, makes for more interesting reading than success (though her successes are fascinating too.)
Though her undertaking is more admirably foolhardy than my own, I know what she’s going through. Kitchen work is kitchen work—and the sheer quantity of work involved can easily reduce anyone to tears, especially anyone who has other responsibilities in life. I know full well the agony of trying to make more than one new thing at a time, the despair that mounts as the kitchen sink fills with plate after plate, bowl after bowl, the exhaustion that creeps in before the food is even served, compounded by the niggling sense that those dirty dishes aren’t going to be whisked away by the Corelle genie--all while a little boy runs rampant through the house, in need of a bath, jammies and several bedtime stories.
There comes a point where you can’t even clean as you go, because you’re just lucky you can think as you go.
Happy as I was with my souffle last night, when all was said and eaten, my kitchen was in a state so deplorable that my husband was moved to capture the moment, (before he absconded to a friend’s house who needed help with his new computer, help in eliminating the build-up of unsolicited porn , or at least, unwanted porn he seems to accrue.) Still, the elation over that small soufflé triumph carried me through the clean-up, but barely.
The tears for me came later when I stepped on the scale before bed, knowing full well it had been an over-indulgent weekend—not so much from the soufflé as from birthday cake and Fritos (of all despicable things!) & cheese curds at my little boy’s party.
I’d like rather desperately not to think about food so much for a little while, an impossibility when the division of labor is such that feeding the family is my responsibility.
And so, for myself, I resolve to eat two meals a day instead of three—brunch and supper. This will ensure that by the time the evening meal is served I will not have already consumed all the calories I should for the day.
As for cooking, while we are not eactly going to go into “Temple Food Mode” as advocated by Nigella, I am going to devote the month of February to planning lighter meals; more soups, salads, fish and vegetables. Perhaps osso bucco can wait a bit until I’ve reached a state of equilibrium here.
The soup I will start with tonight is an old one in the repertoire: Chicken Wild Rice. I haven’t got the wherewithal to dive into something new again without taking a breath
8:51:24 AM 
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