Cooking for One Strikes Out

I was chatting with my friend at the gym several months ago and like most days, as we curled our biceps and lowered our  spreading bottoms to squat,  our aging quads groaning like tired old pistons, the conversation drifted to food. She asked me how my "cooking my food" strike was working out.

One of only three dishes that causes the family to revolt.

"Great. I made stuffed cabbage last night," I said.

The "Golumpky" recipe came from my mother's friend Charlotte, a tiny timid gal who reminded me of a Cornish game hen. Her husband, a scientist, fiddled around with more than beakers in his laboratory, his deep blue eyes were like pools of inviting water, so nearly matching the luring Caribbean, that women were quick to plunge into bed with him.

And even though a curtain of brown shaggy bangs and big plastic glasses couldn't mask her sad  eyes, Charlotte found pleasure in the kitchen churning out golumpkies like a machine.

These chubby little torpedoes top the list as the  number one reason for a dinnertime standoff  in our house, inching slightly ahead of roasted pork with sauerkraut and corned beef and cabbage.

See, I went on strike because I'd had enough of cooking only what the kids and the husband liked. I can't help the fact that my palate begs for diversity, for subtle or explosive pleasures. I was raised by a woman who found satisfaction and love in a 5 pound bag of flour, rolling out flaky biscuits or beating choux in the saucepan for cream puffs that were so light, you'd think they'd lift off the baking sheet.

So I wondered what about the cook's hankerings? Chef's choice? Darn it. What about me? I was going to cook all my favorite dishes- like stuffed cabbage, corned beef and cabbage, braised cabbage and buttered cabbage and say to hell with my brood.

I was on a cruciferae  bender and they  were in for a heady ride.

When I told the long faced teens and husband that I'd be cooking "me"  food for the next few days,  they put the local pizza parlor on speed dial and hit send.

"Hey, wait a minute," I said. "I make your food all the time, you should have to eat mine. Besides, we only have my food once a year and sometimes you have to do things you don't want," I said.

"We're not even Polish so why do we have to eat golumpkies," they asked.

"And yeah, we're not Irish so why do we have to eat corned beef and stupid cabbage," they added..

"Because it will make me  happy," I shouted.

"And when mother is happy, the house is happy," pipped in the husband, who knows that the house either perks along in a gleeful hum or roars off its foundation, depending on, well, me.

Not too long ago, I had a little hissy fit one weekend when Teen Boy and Teen Girl complained about going on a cruise in February. Actually, it wasn't a little tantrum, but a catastrophic meltdown and if you've ever seen a middle aged lady throw a wobbly, it wasn't pretty.

Think Joan Crawford.

On steroids.

It all started when Grandfather Bill, who strolled into their lives a little more than a year ago, said he'd be taking four out of the six grandchildren  on a Caribbean adventure and the offspring didn't  want to sail away.

Now, if someone offered me a free ride all expenses paid vacation, where I didn't have to cook and I could just stuff my face with food and knock back drinks while resting my ample duff on a lounge chair, I'd have my bags packed before they finished the details. But Teen Boy says that he's just as happy visiting him in New York for a few days.

"I feel uncomfortable that he is spending all that money on me. I value his intelligence, not his money."

Wow. I'm raising a communist.  I should have named him Che Jones.

"Well, sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do because it makes other people happy," I said. Grandfather Bill wants to take you. He's making up for missed time.

"I didn't earn his wealth. I am not entitled to it." said Teen Communist, adding, "Besides, I've never wanted to go on a cruise."

 And that was my trigger point.

And this is where I pulled out of my archives speech number 65- "Do you know how many times I 've done things for you that I didn't want to do?"

"I spent two hours watching a live performance of Thomas the Tank in Providence in a theater filled with thousands of screaming boys and actors dressed up in creepy cardboard cut outs of Thomas, Diesel and  Daisy. 

"I went ......CAMPING and it rained and rained and my sleeping bag felt like I was stuck in a wet compression sock and I didn't get an ounce of sleep because I  have a nighttime bladder condition and every time I walked to the outhouses, I thought I would get stabbed by a snaggled-toothed  campground killer.

"I took you to Old Country Buffet"

"I ate Dominoes Pizza for years"

Both Teen Boy and Teen Girl just looked at me. And that's when my inner Joan sprang to life.

If you could have measured the unbridled rage whirling around the kitchen table, it would have surpassed a Level 5 Hurricane, made a nor'easter look like fluffy flurries, made Hurricane Bob look like a whisper from an aging uncle. 

I am always doing things I don't want to do. Like emptying the dishwasher, fishing turds out of the litter box, peeling potatoes or cooking pasta six days of the week, But I do these things because we need clean plates, my geriatric cat needs a tidy spot to poop,Teen girl loves my scalloped spuds and they both like my pasta.

So when Teen Boy and Teen Girl complained about going on the cruise, I snapped. It was the crack heard round the Jones' household.

I admit, my scrambled eggs may have become airborne (It's amazing how aerodynamic they are when you add plenty of fresh cream and give them a good whip) and a few saucy words may have escaped my lips.  It is one of those family scenes that you wish you could edit and leave on the cutting room floor of family disasters.

But I'm afraid, like a good drama scene, it's forever etched in our memories. 

I'd like to say that the teens and husband dug into the golumpkies with gusto, confessed that they'd wished they had tried them years ago, wanted them packed up in their lunch boxes,  but my "cooking my food" bender was a disaster, a gustatory failure.

They didn't eat them, they ordered pizza instead and I was left with a pan of golumpkies that seemed to multiply in the fridge.

The kids didn't go on their cruise, but headed to Paris instead.

But I realized that although I love to complain about those Thomas the Tank, Camping in the Rain and Old Country Buffet days,  I actually look back on those memories with great fondness.

And  like all good strikes, you have to have a few concessions and overlook a few pizza boxes.