Not that shopping day trips betwixt only my parents are terribly uncommon, and not that I never fix meals, on the contrary, I am very used to both; it�s just that today I have been overly tired, dreadfully board, and extremely creative. These are not usual feelings for me to experience jointly, when left to baby-sit the children, or to fix meals.
My constant assistant (sister dear) was feeling terribly lazy as always, and didn�t want to put much effort into a meal, but she and I were both tired of the quick, simple fare my parents choose to feed us redundantly. Every other night is spaghetti or chicken, noodles and mashed potatoes. Partly, I blame this on the small children. There�s not much else they�ll eat. That�s the horrible disadvantage of small children. They�re terribly picky. And unfortunately, the fixings for redundant meals was about all that was left in our cupboards to fix.
Altogether, the ground was very dry for the eager, fertile imaginations of my sister and I. We wanted to do something new and different yet still fairly quick and simple, but everything seemed to check us.
Our best idea? Dinner Theatre.
Imagine the scene:
Three small children dressed in ragged clothing. A horrible, cruel rich old miser presiding over a huge pot of steaming mush (or goulash as my sister would affectionately call it) while his equally heartless wife beside him doled out meager scraps of bread and cheese. The children quailed in line as they awaited their turn to receive a few heaping spoonfuls of the rancid porridge, and then scurry off to their assigned seats to devour it with their bread and cheese and mug of water.
Ok, well I exaggerate. My sister and I were going to dress the children up, or perhaps I should say �down.� I was going to be the rich miser and my �huge pot of steaming mush� was to be a large pot hardly filled with a few packets of instant oatmeal and raisins. Cassie was to be my �wife� and she was going to give out wheat bread and ample slices of cheese. Drinks would be in mugs, but whether water or milk or juice or tea was up to the kids. The key here was to have fun, to play act, and not actually torment my siblings, which of course explains the generosity of my sister and I. The idea was perfect, and as I paced and worried over whether this would actually count as a significant meal, my sister tried to coax my siblings into the idea.
Unfortunately to no avail. The little girls refused to eat bread or cheese, while the youngest absolutely repulsed the idea of eating oatmeal for dinner. I knew if she refused to eat, there was little else I could fix her, and there was no way I could justify this situation to my parents. Cassie and I gave up the idea, much downcast.
And I cannot stress again, how aggravating the check of the pickiness of young children is. But I cannot begin to reproach them for their actions for I was just as bad when I was young. Most every child is.
In the end, my sister and I did turn to creativity, just not in such a wild manner. The kids got cheese quesadillas, chicken, and fruit from the elaborate pineapple/banana/mandarin orange platter Cassie and I constructed. Quick, simple, yet refreshing and different. I really wanted to practice honing my improvisational/from scratch cooking skills and that gave me a slender of a workout but probably not what I would have liked. I�d just like to be capable. I feel that for my own expectations of myself, I�m a bit too old to still be entirely relying on microwavable pre-packaged solutions. I am in a nice niche of life where I have both the time and ability to be creative and fun with cooking. I don�t want to be bound by boxes yet.
Oh yes. When my parents heard what I fixed for dinner, they were shocked, proud, and surprised. I felt terrible. It illustrated to me how much of an underachieving lazy whore I have become. My parents congratulate me for the ingenuity of such an easy, pathetic meal. Yep. Time to try a whole lot harder. I�m 18. I�m a big girl. I can do a whole lot better.
One more last thing. How is it that I manage to keep everything clean but my white blazer? I am a perfect gentlewoman when it comes to eating until I�m wearing my white blazer and then I do everything wrong to bespatter it fresh out of the wash, with all manner of horrible staining foods. Like salsa. CLUTZ!