“It looks pretty saucy. Is it saucier than usual?”
This is Josh, my college student, home for the summer. He’s examining a frying pan filled with flavored chopped meat, perplexed,
nay concerned, that the dinner set before him isn't quite right. It’s Taco Tuesday, you see, a weekly event in our
kitchen because Josh misses Cornell’s make-your-own supper, in which he indulged every Monday last school year. (They don't menu plan via alliteration there, apparently.) Taco night relieved Josh
from the monotony of ...
Read moreYou should have seen me Saturday night, wiping salt off my tongue. Not wiping. That’s too civilized a description. With a force of desperation, I was dragging a linen napkin over my tongue, from top to bottom, top to bottom. Occasionally I’d jam a finger in and wrap it around my tongue to scoop out more of the assaulting mess.
Read moreDid I mention the toilet? Ours worked perfectly well. I liked it fine. Only nowadays owners of upscale homes who redo bathrooms install “comfort height” units. They’re higher off the ground so we don’t have to struggle to squat so low. (I never struggled; did you?)
Read moreRyan has a brutal upper respiratory infection. He’s lucky. Why? Because if he felt good, if his nose and throat and head and glands weren’t swollen and achy, he’d be at band camp.
Read moreOne fine spring day in Oneonta, New York, my college friend Chris and I bolted out of her car in a bank parking lot while belting out the words to Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.” Newspaper editors, serious students and overall ambitious young women, we were giddy with possibilities – until we came face to face with Clifford Craven, our school principal.
Read moreToppling out of a meeting at my kid’s school 8 o’clock at night, famished and damn sick of the black pumps squeezing mytoes, I was happy to learn that Son No. 1 had remembered to take the chicken wings dinner I’d prepared in advance out of the oven. Until I read his text: “Please never make them again.” Pissed, I
scrolled to the next message, from my husband: “Wings for me? They’re all skin.”
Read moreLow-grade terror of spills, stains and general culinary chaos aside, I decided to cook for company in my new kitchen.That’s a normal thing to do, right?
Read moreTake a look at this picture. It’s a blah picture of a spoon rest on a plastic plate, right? Oh no. It’s more than that. This is Michael and me being scared of our kitchen. This is an image of spoon rest on a plastic plate so the metal won’t somehow destroy the counter under it.
Read moreI was crouched to the ground of the hallway outside the kids’ rooms gently smashing hamburgers against the twin heated serrated panels of a hand-me-down George Foreman grill.
Read moreYou see this? That's us trying to choose a wall color for the common rooms of our house.
Read moreSo now cabinets are out of style.
Read moreNow that school has started, I'm faced with similar decisions every day: Do I lobby to get Josh the teacher he wants for AP Environmental or step back? Do I rummage through Ryan's backpack for papers I need to sign or let him get a zero if he doesn't follow through? And the big one this week: Do I follow up with the mother who threatened to go to the dean if Ryan calls her kid a mean name again (which he denies) and try to keep her calm, or do I let the school's anti-bullying system take its course?
Read moreIf Josh gets into an ace university, it's only because A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian didn't catch my interest.
Read morePutting away bulky All-Clad pans following a recent dinner party, my fingers came across a layer of goo. Not goo, really. Grime. Grease. Whatever the word, my shiny stainless steel über-cookware felt unclean. I suddenly felt a surge of dread. "I washed serving dishes at Norine's barbecue yesterday," I remembered, sickened. "Now she'll know."
Read moreHa! I just found myself on the other side of the "thank you" issue -- twice. End of story: I will not make any fuss.
Read more"Shame on you!" my friend reprimanded her daughter at a kid's soccer game recently. "Walk behind people's chairs, not in front of them." WHUH? Once again, I discovered that I have bad manners. I've been to dozens upon dozens of soccer games in the last 13 years, and it never once occurred to me that I would obstruct parents' views by strolling by as they as they cheer on their goalies and defenders. It's common sense, right? Not to me.
Read moreOn a warm spring evening in front of a friend's house, I hurried with my 13-year-old into the car and shut the door. "Did something happen at the bar mitzvah?" I asked. He calmly said no and asked why. "B's father just called Daddy over to talk privately and he looked somber," I explained. "If something's up, I'd rather hear it from you."
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