The turning point was the chocolate chip cookies: the year my mother did not give me a tin of her Tollhouse cookies as a Christmas present.
Tollhouse cookies were one of her four specialties, the others being two casseroles and a stew. Ever since I had moved way from home at nineteen, my mother had put together a tin of homemade cookies for me each year. I counted on them.
And this was before her stroke, so I did not know what to make of it that Christmas when she gave me a few oddments – her usual style of gift-giving, which was fine by me: random stationary supplies, a box of tea, maybe a nice dishtowel -- but no cookies. I considered if I had done something wrong, but certainly I had done nothing wrong in my mid-40s compared to what I might have done in my mid-20s. She just forgot, I thought. Or more likely was afraid of the oven, an old gas range with an uncertain pilot light.
But no mention of the omission either. My mother would have told me if she had not been able to bake cookies, and would have shown me the two big bags of Tollhouse chips she had bought and not been able to use. And the decorative tin.
I returned home to Baltimore and told my husband I was a little let down. He had counted on the cookies as well. But I realized it was a sign of the times, a small letting go of a small Christmas tradition my mother had created for me as an adult. Amazing to think now about how much more letting go there would be in the next few years.
Showing posts with label complications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label complications. Show all posts
Logophilia
People think I know words, but it’s just that I went to Catholic school and lived with a classicist for many years. And, oh yeah, I read a lot.
In Catholic school you learned enough Latin to understand the mass (before it was in English, of course) and on Sundays you stared at your missal with Latin on one side and English on the other and saw over and over again how the words were connected. Plus, you had the nuns saying “Break it down, break it down” whenever you were confronted with a new word in class. We learned our roots and prefixes; no problem.
The classicist expanded the base, with some Greek thrown in, so that I could be pretentious about words in three languages, two of them dead. I would be teaching an anthropology class and put a technical term on the blackboard – ambilateral, or matrifocal -- and say, Come on, you know this. Just break it down. No breakdown ensued, just blank stares.
I gave up on that ploy and started putting random words on the board that I loved, telling students that they’d never need to know this but it would enrich their lives immeasurably if they ever saw the word “prelapsarian” in a book and understood what it meant. Yeah, right. That went over well.
A while back a little girl I know told me that there were cumulonimbus clouds in the sky and that this meant it would rain. “Nimbus” means rain, she said. I said no, that kind of cloud does mean that it will probably rain, but nimbus itself means cloud, or aura, the special quality that some people and things have surrounding them. Her mother took issue with me: the handout from the teacher said that nimbus means rain. I gave up on what “mean” means and went home to my OED, the middle-aged Catholic schoolgirl’s best friend.
In Catholic school you learned enough Latin to understand the mass (before it was in English, of course) and on Sundays you stared at your missal with Latin on one side and English on the other and saw over and over again how the words were connected. Plus, you had the nuns saying “Break it down, break it down” whenever you were confronted with a new word in class. We learned our roots and prefixes; no problem.
The classicist expanded the base, with some Greek thrown in, so that I could be pretentious about words in three languages, two of them dead. I would be teaching an anthropology class and put a technical term on the blackboard – ambilateral, or matrifocal -- and say, Come on, you know this. Just break it down. No breakdown ensued, just blank stares.
I gave up on that ploy and started putting random words on the board that I loved, telling students that they’d never need to know this but it would enrich their lives immeasurably if they ever saw the word “prelapsarian” in a book and understood what it meant. Yeah, right. That went over well.
A while back a little girl I know told me that there were cumulonimbus clouds in the sky and that this meant it would rain. “Nimbus” means rain, she said. I said no, that kind of cloud does mean that it will probably rain, but nimbus itself means cloud, or aura, the special quality that some people and things have surrounding them. Her mother took issue with me: the handout from the teacher said that nimbus means rain. I gave up on what “mean” means and went home to my OED, the middle-aged Catholic schoolgirl’s best friend.
Mandates
Unfunded mandates – that’s who I’ve gone out with most of my life. Or if my mandates got funded, it was about twenty minutes after we split up. Now I’m not one of those wives who put hubby through law school and got left in the lurch when he made partner. I should live so long as to fight over who gets the weekend cottage. I’m just one of those ordinary women in a series of long-term relationships where sometimes I paid the rent, sometimes he did. No problem, no complaint. No money.
At this point in my life, however, I’d like to find a funded mandate. I’m not talking diamond earrings and private jets. I mean someone who could buy me what I want most after decades of hard work: a little free time. Someone who’d say, “That’s okay, honey. You stay home and lie on the couch reading back issues of The New Yorker. I’ll take care of everything.” That kind of mandate.
But funded mandates are hard to find, even if you are as ravishing and witty as I. Funded mandates my age are drawn to womendates who were born sometime during the Reagan administration and who are fierce advocates of trickle-down economics. I’m more of the property-is-theft school of thought, which helps explain my series of unfunded mandates.
My therapist says “Fund your own mandate.” I tell her, that’s what I’ve been doing all this time. It’s not working.
Maybe what I really need is an unmanned fundate, a nice eunuch with a good sense of humor and a healthy bank account. The two of us can lie on the couch reading old magazines and eating chocolate chip cookies, and never go looking for mandates, funded or otherwise, again.
At this point in my life, however, I’d like to find a funded mandate. I’m not talking diamond earrings and private jets. I mean someone who could buy me what I want most after decades of hard work: a little free time. Someone who’d say, “That’s okay, honey. You stay home and lie on the couch reading back issues of The New Yorker. I’ll take care of everything.” That kind of mandate.
But funded mandates are hard to find, even if you are as ravishing and witty as I. Funded mandates my age are drawn to womendates who were born sometime during the Reagan administration and who are fierce advocates of trickle-down economics. I’m more of the property-is-theft school of thought, which helps explain my series of unfunded mandates.
My therapist says “Fund your own mandate.” I tell her, that’s what I’ve been doing all this time. It’s not working.
Maybe what I really need is an unmanned fundate, a nice eunuch with a good sense of humor and a healthy bank account. The two of us can lie on the couch reading old magazines and eating chocolate chip cookies, and never go looking for mandates, funded or otherwise, again.
Cookbook Review
What Fresh Hell: Quick ‘n’ Easy Dinners for Unexpected Guests. Bootsy Barnes Boxwood. 112 pages. Homemaker Press. $19.95.
Break out the cooking sherry! That’s the first piece of advice we get from Bootsy Barnes Boxwood, author of Drinking Alone While Cooking for Two, in her new book, What Fresh Hell: Quick ‘n’ Easy Dinners for Unexpected Guests. A self-described “cordon blah chef,” Boxwood now gives us her guide to fine dining at the last minute – after hubby’s called to say he’s bringing the boss home for supper, the Eagle Scouts have just camped in your living room, and the mother-in-law who said she’d never darken your door again shows up.
Ever since the days of Mrs. Beeton, women have looked for time and labor saving ways to run their kitchens. As that eminent Victorian advised in her Book of Household Management (1861), when it comes to cooking, “all terms of indecision should be banished.” Boxwood is the modern Beeton, minus the scullery maid – a woman who is not afraid to wield a can opener and a bottle of ketchup. Let others embrace their James Beard and Julia Child; my choice is Boxwood’s back-to-basics approach to getting dinner over with. It’s not rocket science – but a little fuel sure helps!
Boxwood’s recipes call for an uncommon amount of brandy and vermouth, but that just adds to the warmth around the dinner table as guests enjoy her Casserole à la Colonel and Chili con Corn Flakes. Tuna and minute rice are mainstays, and if you have canned peas, you are ready to entertain. But don’t think this is just another add-mushroom-soup-and-stir cookbook. Boxwood combines convenience with elegance to serve up tasty meals with a truly eclectic range of ingredients -- in fact, whatever’s in the house when the panic sets in. One might quibble with her approach to writing recipes; for those of us who are not natural cooks, a “dash” of this and a “slosh” of that will not be sufficient guidance, but Boxwood allays our anxiety, and hers, with frequent reminders to “sip” -- surely the best way to face down dinner.
No cookbook author can afford to ignore the interest in healthy eating that has swept the nation in recent years. Boxwood avoids artery-clogging corn oil, recommending extra virgin (“at least it was when I bought it!” she quips) olive oil for her Titanic Salad, a clever combination of iceberg lettuce and blue cheese (“at least it was when I bought it!” – Boxwood knows just how far to stretch a joke). She thoughtfully provides the calorie count for the most popular before, during, and after dinner drinks, but her bottom line is this: never mix the grape and the grain. That’s good advice, although a little hard to follow in a book so filled with “good cheer.”
A creative dessert will crown any meal, and here Boxwood excels. Did you know that leftover candy corn makes a great ice cream topping, with or without the ice cream? Boxwood also provides simple centerpiece ideas to suit the season: a pine cone in an ashtray for the winter holidays, a bunny slipper filled with dried-up marshmallow chicks for a festive Easter look; the list goes on.
We look forward to Boxwood’s upcoming Dining after Divorce, a cookbook for women facing re-entry into the job market and a vicious custody battle. In the meantime, have a friend drive you to the bookstore to pick up a copy of What Fresh Hell and then toast yourself for being smart – and “loaded” with great new ideas!
Margaret Burnside
Food Editor
Break out the cooking sherry! That’s the first piece of advice we get from Bootsy Barnes Boxwood, author of Drinking Alone While Cooking for Two, in her new book, What Fresh Hell: Quick ‘n’ Easy Dinners for Unexpected Guests. A self-described “cordon blah chef,” Boxwood now gives us her guide to fine dining at the last minute – after hubby’s called to say he’s bringing the boss home for supper, the Eagle Scouts have just camped in your living room, and the mother-in-law who said she’d never darken your door again shows up.
Ever since the days of Mrs. Beeton, women have looked for time and labor saving ways to run their kitchens. As that eminent Victorian advised in her Book of Household Management (1861), when it comes to cooking, “all terms of indecision should be banished.” Boxwood is the modern Beeton, minus the scullery maid – a woman who is not afraid to wield a can opener and a bottle of ketchup. Let others embrace their James Beard and Julia Child; my choice is Boxwood’s back-to-basics approach to getting dinner over with. It’s not rocket science – but a little fuel sure helps!
Boxwood’s recipes call for an uncommon amount of brandy and vermouth, but that just adds to the warmth around the dinner table as guests enjoy her Casserole à la Colonel and Chili con Corn Flakes. Tuna and minute rice are mainstays, and if you have canned peas, you are ready to entertain. But don’t think this is just another add-mushroom-soup-and-stir cookbook. Boxwood combines convenience with elegance to serve up tasty meals with a truly eclectic range of ingredients -- in fact, whatever’s in the house when the panic sets in. One might quibble with her approach to writing recipes; for those of us who are not natural cooks, a “dash” of this and a “slosh” of that will not be sufficient guidance, but Boxwood allays our anxiety, and hers, with frequent reminders to “sip” -- surely the best way to face down dinner.
No cookbook author can afford to ignore the interest in healthy eating that has swept the nation in recent years. Boxwood avoids artery-clogging corn oil, recommending extra virgin (“at least it was when I bought it!” she quips) olive oil for her Titanic Salad, a clever combination of iceberg lettuce and blue cheese (“at least it was when I bought it!” – Boxwood knows just how far to stretch a joke). She thoughtfully provides the calorie count for the most popular before, during, and after dinner drinks, but her bottom line is this: never mix the grape and the grain. That’s good advice, although a little hard to follow in a book so filled with “good cheer.”
A creative dessert will crown any meal, and here Boxwood excels. Did you know that leftover candy corn makes a great ice cream topping, with or without the ice cream? Boxwood also provides simple centerpiece ideas to suit the season: a pine cone in an ashtray for the winter holidays, a bunny slipper filled with dried-up marshmallow chicks for a festive Easter look; the list goes on.
We look forward to Boxwood’s upcoming Dining after Divorce, a cookbook for women facing re-entry into the job market and a vicious custody battle. In the meantime, have a friend drive you to the bookstore to pick up a copy of What Fresh Hell and then toast yourself for being smart – and “loaded” with great new ideas!
Margaret Burnside
Food Editor
Perfume
I have worn five perfumes in my life, or rather, “scents,” the preferred industry term. The first was My Sin, by Lanvin, which someone gave me a tiny bottle of when I was nineteen. I loved it: My Sin. It smelled of dried roses rising from ancient velvet. I carried the bottle around with me long after it was empty, like a Victorian lady’s smelling salts.
Then a friend introduced me to Anaïs Anaïs, by Cacharel, one of the signature scents of the seventies. (Another was Brut, but let’s not go there.) AA was the tempermental opposite of My Sin – powdery, girlish, spring-like. I wore it for many years and still love it, but my body chemistry changed, or Cacharel changed the formula, and now it does not last on me more than a few minutes.
One of those irritating scented ads led me to Truth, by Calvin Klein. You must always say it that way: Truth, by Calvin Klein, lowering your voice on the “Calvin Klein” part. I wore it for about four years, until Calvin Klein stopped making it. For a while I could find end-of-stock bottles on random websites – I once ordered it from Wal-Mart – but eventually even those sources dried up. Betrayal, by Calvin Klein.
Unfortunately, the end of the Truth era coincided with the beginning of my Self-Loathing era, and I could not bring myself to go hunting in department stores for another perfume. I was not worthy. I could drag myself into the local Rite-Aid, but the featured perfumes there were inspired by celebrities like Christina, Jessica, and Sarah Jessica. I was too low for J-Lo. I did consider buying one of the Olsen twins’ perfumes, but decided Mary-Kate’s bag lady persona was too close to home while Ashley’s All-American classic was too much of a stretch.
Close to desperation, I started using a perfume sample that a friend had given me -- J’Adore, by Dior. When I had first tried it, I disliked it. It was dark and lugubrious. I still disliked it, but anything was better than the stink of failure and you couldn’t say it was cheap. I was also kind of fascinated by the fact that Charlize Theron was the perfume’s celebrity rep. I had last seen her as an overweight prostitute serial killer, and that did kind of fit my mood, so I sucked up the smell for Aileen’s sake. Wuornos, by Christian Dior.
Don’t worry. I’m in therapy.
Which is how I finally gathered the courage to take a shower and head out to Macy’s to buy my next “real” scent, one that might bear some relation to who I am and might yet be. I knew what I wanted and would not be deterred. I looked like hell and I think the saleswoman felt sorry for me. It did not help that my debit card didn’t go through and my first credit card was turned down. Christ, I thought, it just gets better and better. The second card worked, and I was able to slink out of the store only mildly abashed by the clerk’s solicitous comment: “We all need a little something special sometimes, don’t we?”
Yes we do. And I have gone back to the source, the ur-scent of the modern era, to nurse my battered ego: Chanel No. 5, my parfum nombre cinq.
Then a friend introduced me to Anaïs Anaïs, by Cacharel, one of the signature scents of the seventies. (Another was Brut, but let’s not go there.) AA was the tempermental opposite of My Sin – powdery, girlish, spring-like. I wore it for many years and still love it, but my body chemistry changed, or Cacharel changed the formula, and now it does not last on me more than a few minutes.
One of those irritating scented ads led me to Truth, by Calvin Klein. You must always say it that way: Truth, by Calvin Klein, lowering your voice on the “Calvin Klein” part. I wore it for about four years, until Calvin Klein stopped making it. For a while I could find end-of-stock bottles on random websites – I once ordered it from Wal-Mart – but eventually even those sources dried up. Betrayal, by Calvin Klein.
Unfortunately, the end of the Truth era coincided with the beginning of my Self-Loathing era, and I could not bring myself to go hunting in department stores for another perfume. I was not worthy. I could drag myself into the local Rite-Aid, but the featured perfumes there were inspired by celebrities like Christina, Jessica, and Sarah Jessica. I was too low for J-Lo. I did consider buying one of the Olsen twins’ perfumes, but decided Mary-Kate’s bag lady persona was too close to home while Ashley’s All-American classic was too much of a stretch.
Close to desperation, I started using a perfume sample that a friend had given me -- J’Adore, by Dior. When I had first tried it, I disliked it. It was dark and lugubrious. I still disliked it, but anything was better than the stink of failure and you couldn’t say it was cheap. I was also kind of fascinated by the fact that Charlize Theron was the perfume’s celebrity rep. I had last seen her as an overweight prostitute serial killer, and that did kind of fit my mood, so I sucked up the smell for Aileen’s sake. Wuornos, by Christian Dior.
Don’t worry. I’m in therapy.
Which is how I finally gathered the courage to take a shower and head out to Macy’s to buy my next “real” scent, one that might bear some relation to who I am and might yet be. I knew what I wanted and would not be deterred. I looked like hell and I think the saleswoman felt sorry for me. It did not help that my debit card didn’t go through and my first credit card was turned down. Christ, I thought, it just gets better and better. The second card worked, and I was able to slink out of the store only mildly abashed by the clerk’s solicitous comment: “We all need a little something special sometimes, don’t we?”
Yes we do. And I have gone back to the source, the ur-scent of the modern era, to nurse my battered ego: Chanel No. 5, my parfum nombre cinq.
Ex Cathedra
My former husband knew I was obsessed with popes, among other scoundrels, so he bought me a book he found on a street vendor’s table called “The Bad Popes,” or as we preferred to call it, “The Very Bad Popes.”
And they were very bad indeed. When not fornicating with their sisters, they were beheading various Muhammedans and plundering the world’s art and gold.
They were fun to read about. I’d do a few each night before I fell asleep, nudging Patrick to read him passages about exceptionally bad papal acts just as he was finally drifting off. Listen to this, I’d say, they actually called this guy “The Butcher of Belgium.”
They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Or maybe they do. The jury’s still out on Pius XII’s collaboration with Mussolini, his suspected deal-making to keep the fascists out of Vatican City. (Note to Pius: they were in there already.)
One thing about divorce: assuming that you went so far as to actually marry someone, it was because you were bound by a common culture, one that you elaborated upon as you went along and that irritated the shit out of your friends. I don’t miss marriage so much as having someone to tell very bad pope stories to. Innocent the Third, Leo the Tenth – they were all bad, but they were ours.
And they were very bad indeed. When not fornicating with their sisters, they were beheading various Muhammedans and plundering the world’s art and gold.
They were fun to read about. I’d do a few each night before I fell asleep, nudging Patrick to read him passages about exceptionally bad papal acts just as he was finally drifting off. Listen to this, I’d say, they actually called this guy “The Butcher of Belgium.”
They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Or maybe they do. The jury’s still out on Pius XII’s collaboration with Mussolini, his suspected deal-making to keep the fascists out of Vatican City. (Note to Pius: they were in there already.)
One thing about divorce: assuming that you went so far as to actually marry someone, it was because you were bound by a common culture, one that you elaborated upon as you went along and that irritated the shit out of your friends. I don’t miss marriage so much as having someone to tell very bad pope stories to. Innocent the Third, Leo the Tenth – they were all bad, but they were ours.
Mugs
I got the mug from a show at the Corcoran. Childishly, I wanted to make a statement. I have taste, I go to museums. The mug says that I am not Number One Grandpa, or an habitué of Dunkin Donuts, or a customer of Jack Luck Chevrolet: Meeting Your Driving Needs Since 1948. My mug has snob appeal – it was bought one day after the exhibit opened. It should be numbered, like a lithograph.
It is only slightly less obnoxious than my James Joyce mug, which a friend brought me from a conference. James Joyce: Meeting Your Stream of Consciousness Needs Since 1904. Now that is one cup of java: “I go forth to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” No wonder people at work hate me.
It’s not that others don’t have impressive mugs. A friend told me about the one her son keeps at the office. “Fuck Cancer,” it says, ‘cause he did. And recently I was served coffee in what is probably one of the most sophisticated mugs in all of greater Richmond: it commemorates a speech by Mikhail Gorbachev at VCU in 1993. Since the person who offered me the mug is a gracious southern hostess, it really was a bottomless cup of perestroika.
I have a secret mug, a comfort mug, with a Peter Rabbit-like design. But it is ersatz Peter Rabbit. I bought it for a nickel in a Lutheran thrift shop. It is not elegant; it is not literate; it does not convey that I move in select circles. It is my little cup of home, and family. The me before I even drank coffee.
It is only slightly less obnoxious than my James Joyce mug, which a friend brought me from a conference. James Joyce: Meeting Your Stream of Consciousness Needs Since 1904. Now that is one cup of java: “I go forth to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” No wonder people at work hate me.
It’s not that others don’t have impressive mugs. A friend told me about the one her son keeps at the office. “Fuck Cancer,” it says, ‘cause he did. And recently I was served coffee in what is probably one of the most sophisticated mugs in all of greater Richmond: it commemorates a speech by Mikhail Gorbachev at VCU in 1993. Since the person who offered me the mug is a gracious southern hostess, it really was a bottomless cup of perestroika.
I have a secret mug, a comfort mug, with a Peter Rabbit-like design. But it is ersatz Peter Rabbit. I bought it for a nickel in a Lutheran thrift shop. It is not elegant; it is not literate; it does not convey that I move in select circles. It is my little cup of home, and family. The me before I even drank coffee.
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