An Auspicious Beginning?
Jan. 1st, 2005 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Prolly not, but it was an OK day today. Guess what??!
Soon I won't be the Most Junior Bartender!!
They fired somebody, or he left, I dunno which. So soon they'll hire some other poor sap, and I won't be the most junior anymore, and maybe I'll even get to work someplace besides Club and Torture-Bar. Today I worked what sort of should've been his shift, in that he was supposed to come in a bit later and relieve me, and nobody was there to come in. So, I worked alone from opening to closing in the 'quiet bar' (not the Club, but the other one, the torture-device bar, where everything seems actively designed to be inconvenient).
And lo, because we all expected it to be quiet, it was busy.
Still, I agreed to stay late, and lo! I made decent tips, and there was rejoicing among my brain cells.
And it wasn't until I was counting my drawer to cash out that I noticed that my feet, back, and head were all killing me.
So, am safely ensconced on the couch, having taken one of our felony-imported Canadian painkillers (aspirin with miniscule quantities of codeine in, which cost less than a comparably-sized bottle of just plain aspirin do here). And here's the part that makes for a really good day:
Dave made dinner. He text-msgd me at work saying "don't eat dinner", so I didn't, and I came home and he had made homemade pea soup. He had gone out and bought ham hocks and made the Joy of Cooking's pea soup recipe.
Best boy ever, or what?
Man, I wish I earned enough to be his sugar momma. Working isn't so bad when there's somebody to pick you up and drop you off at the door, and to have dinner waiting when you get home. No wonder he didn't complain too much when my unemployed ass was lying around the house making him food! Not that I drove him to work, but the parking lot was small there anyway.
Yeah... that's my ambition. To be a sugar momma. Though I think he'd have to learn to vacuum, tidy, dust, and scrub the shower before I'd totally commit to that.
And, i'd have to make about $300 more per month, reliably.
Bummer.
He cooks better than me-- he goes for the glamour food. When I cook, I cook for the week-- I plan a whole menu and there'll be ham the first night, soup made with the bone the second night, mac-n-cheese with the leftover ham the fourth night (soup's two nights at least), and then I'll clean out the fridge and we'll have 'Tover Night with whatever's left. I don't do glamor, I do from-scratch-but-not-time-consuming. I also do bulk, so I tend to make Chili For The Masses when there are only two of us, and so on. (Chili freezes very well.)
Dave will do something that takes him ALL DAY, and dirties EVERY DISH WE OWN, and it will be the most amazing thing you've ever had. And that's great. That's Man-Cooking. His father did the same thing-- often, his father was the one who cooked for parties and holidays, while his mother did all the side dishes-- his father would smoke or deep-fry the turkey, he would make the pulled-pork, he would poach the salmon, he would make the breakfast dish of lobster newburg, etc. The elaborate, showy, amazingly good stuff. Cooking as an event unto itself.
Dave's learning to woman-cook, a bit-- he's stepping up more often now that I'm so tired, and is whipping up something (usually involving grilled chicken) in under an hour. He's a good cook. He managed quite well for years before he knew me, though he tended to stick to the basics (except when he had reason to impress someone-- he once made me shrimp szechwan and I arrived (driving from Troy to Jersey City, it's hard to be precise with arrival times) slightly too early, so he actually led me through the kitchen shielding me so I couldn't see what he was making, crying out "NO PEEKING!!" -- it was the best shrimp szechwan ever, by the way...)
So, he's a Manly Cook but not insufferably so. No... I would say, very very sufferably so. :)
Yeah... I need a Sugar Momma job.
Soon I won't be the Most Junior Bartender!!
They fired somebody, or he left, I dunno which. So soon they'll hire some other poor sap, and I won't be the most junior anymore, and maybe I'll even get to work someplace besides Club and Torture-Bar. Today I worked what sort of should've been his shift, in that he was supposed to come in a bit later and relieve me, and nobody was there to come in. So, I worked alone from opening to closing in the 'quiet bar' (not the Club, but the other one, the torture-device bar, where everything seems actively designed to be inconvenient).
And lo, because we all expected it to be quiet, it was busy.
Still, I agreed to stay late, and lo! I made decent tips, and there was rejoicing among my brain cells.
And it wasn't until I was counting my drawer to cash out that I noticed that my feet, back, and head were all killing me.
So, am safely ensconced on the couch, having taken one of our felony-imported Canadian painkillers (aspirin with miniscule quantities of codeine in, which cost less than a comparably-sized bottle of just plain aspirin do here). And here's the part that makes for a really good day:
Dave made dinner. He text-msgd me at work saying "don't eat dinner", so I didn't, and I came home and he had made homemade pea soup. He had gone out and bought ham hocks and made the Joy of Cooking's pea soup recipe.
Best boy ever, or what?
Man, I wish I earned enough to be his sugar momma. Working isn't so bad when there's somebody to pick you up and drop you off at the door, and to have dinner waiting when you get home. No wonder he didn't complain too much when my unemployed ass was lying around the house making him food! Not that I drove him to work, but the parking lot was small there anyway.
Yeah... that's my ambition. To be a sugar momma. Though I think he'd have to learn to vacuum, tidy, dust, and scrub the shower before I'd totally commit to that.
And, i'd have to make about $300 more per month, reliably.
Bummer.
He cooks better than me-- he goes for the glamour food. When I cook, I cook for the week-- I plan a whole menu and there'll be ham the first night, soup made with the bone the second night, mac-n-cheese with the leftover ham the fourth night (soup's two nights at least), and then I'll clean out the fridge and we'll have 'Tover Night with whatever's left. I don't do glamor, I do from-scratch-but-not-time-consuming. I also do bulk, so I tend to make Chili For The Masses when there are only two of us, and so on. (Chili freezes very well.)
Dave will do something that takes him ALL DAY, and dirties EVERY DISH WE OWN, and it will be the most amazing thing you've ever had. And that's great. That's Man-Cooking. His father did the same thing-- often, his father was the one who cooked for parties and holidays, while his mother did all the side dishes-- his father would smoke or deep-fry the turkey, he would make the pulled-pork, he would poach the salmon, he would make the breakfast dish of lobster newburg, etc. The elaborate, showy, amazingly good stuff. Cooking as an event unto itself.
Dave's learning to woman-cook, a bit-- he's stepping up more often now that I'm so tired, and is whipping up something (usually involving grilled chicken) in under an hour. He's a good cook. He managed quite well for years before he knew me, though he tended to stick to the basics (except when he had reason to impress someone-- he once made me shrimp szechwan and I arrived (driving from Troy to Jersey City, it's hard to be precise with arrival times) slightly too early, so he actually led me through the kitchen shielding me so I couldn't see what he was making, crying out "NO PEEKING!!" -- it was the best shrimp szechwan ever, by the way...)
So, he's a Manly Cook but not insufferably so. No... I would say, very very sufferably so. :)
Yeah... I need a Sugar Momma job.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 01:52 am (UTC)darius
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 02:53 pm (UTC)Woman-cooking gets way more props from me, because it's doing it to get the job done, instead of doing it to have glory showered down upon you. And that takes more moral fibre.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-02 11:33 pm (UTC)There's nothing wrong with doing things quick and easy. I'm starved for time and calories most of the time, so getting to a good meal quickly is important, 90% of the time.
But anybody can whip out a passable spaghetti recipe. The true test of creativity and skill is what you can do when time is no object.
darius
no subject
Date: 2005-01-03 01:48 am (UTC)Woman cooking is not just whipping out a passable spaghetti recipe.
Woman cooking is feeding the whole family for a week when your primary job is not just feeding the family. Woman cooking is making sure nobody goes hungry or gets scurvy or rickets, while still working 40 hours a week. Woman cooking is making something tasty that they'll eat enough of, while still having time to do the rest of your to-do list.
Man cooking is lovely, but I would say what you can do when there is no time or money is a far greater test of creativity and skill than spending all day in the kitchen and dirtying every dish is. I've eaten great food, but I'm far more impressed with the day-in, day-out stuff that keeps body and soul together, and yet is good enough to applaud. There is nothing quite so satisfying as scraping out the back of the freezer because you're broke, throwing what you find into the crock pot with no recipe, and coming home after work to something absolutely delicious. That isn't glorious, but that is Good Food. And that is the essence of Woman Cooking.
Note: Labels are not necessarily gender-specific, and it would probably be more accurate to refer to it as Glamor Cooking (styled "Man Cooking" because it is more likely to attract men into the kitchen; chefs have done this for years and have almost always been male) versus Practical Cooking (styled Woman Cooking because this is how my mother cooked when I was growing up, with the emphasis on nutritional content, budget, and speed of preparation rather than on presentation).
no subject
Date: 2005-01-05 01:12 am (UTC)