Ravings from Dave : The Loneliness of the Rock 'n' Roll Chef

by DAVEW0071

I've never allowed myself to succumb to gender stereotypes, especially in my own household. Okay, I allowed my wife to actually carry and give birth to our children, but in all other things I attempt to share household duties. I changed diapers and gave baths when our children were younger, and I do housework as much as anyone else around here. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on your fastidiousness and your official standing with the county Board of Health.

Also, there are some tasks I absolutely will not perform. I don't go grocery shopping. Oh, I'll swing by the store to pick up the odd gallon of milk, or an onion or two, but the stocking of provisions is the sole bailiwick of Mrs. Dave-Guy. This is actually a good thing, as I am severely grocery-impaired. It's not that I don't know how to pick good produce, or recognize a bargain when I see it ("Honey, look! They had tripe at thirty cents a pound!"), but rather the fact that I hate crowds of people all milling aimlessly about like so much cattle. I avoid malls for the same reason. It's worse in grocery stores, though, because people are pushing carts around. This exponentially raises the likelihood of them blocking my way.

But once the food is in our larder, I am perfectly willing to pitch in. My wife commutes and I don't, so I am often home hours before she is. I am a caring and sympathetic husband. I want her to come home to a hot, nourishing home-cooked meal. So two or three times every week, I volunteer to make dinner.

Now. My wife will tell you I'm a good cook. She likes the meals I prepare. What's more, she's jealous of the fact that I don't follow recipes, but prefer to cook by the seat of my pants, as it were. I tend to crank up Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits and, between turns at playing air guitar and singing backup on That'll Be The Day, rummage through the cabinets picking whatever herbs and spices I think will complement the tenuous main course I've planned. Between the two of us, Linda and I have produced many tasty meals that, alas, can never be duplicated. Still, I see the culinary art as fleeting, transitory, impermanent. Meals should be eaten and enjoyed in the present moment, not preserved for posterity. My reward is the happy response I get from my wife as she enjoys dinner.

The real problem is our children. They are intelligent, well-behaved youngsters bereft of anti-social tendencies. They are articulate, literate, delightful children. They are truly the National Public Radio of offspring. Unfortunately, they possess Jerry Springer taste buds.

My daughter, who is eighteen, has the diplomacy and tact to say she has a "virgin palate", but all this really means is anything spicier than Minute Rice® and white bread will be spurned. Even an interesting chicken marinade is suspect if it contains anything more than bottled Teriyaki sauce. Her "virgin palate" has resulted in her politely turning down my homemade macaroni and cheese, for which I lovingly grated two different kinds of genuine cheese, in favor of the lurid neon orange powdered "cheez" of a boxed product. Worse, she prefers the STORE BRAND to the national brand of pre-packaged just-add-milk-and-stir macaroni and cheese. This blossoming young lady may be able to have an intelligent conversation on the subtext of incest within Hamlet, but she's a macaroni and cheese moron.

Then there's my son, the nine-year-old. This is a kid who, when asked what he'd like for breakfast, will often reply, "The usual." We understand this to mean a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on toast. A lot of his diet consists of colors that aren't found in nature. Were he suddenly placed in a society of hunters and gatherers, the first thing he'd want to know was where the Crunchberry® bush was. He is also afflicted with the bizarre notion that flavoring something with an onion renders it inedible. Don't even get me started on mushrooms.

He has a certain level of tact, though. He'll hem and haw, and tell me he doesn't want me to feel bad, but he doesn't really like what I made for dinner. He's even made the gentle suggestion that maybe I shouldn't play so much Linda Ronstadt when I'm cooking. Then he asks for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on toast. The final blow from him came when I recently replaced all the screens on our front porch. To keep myself amused and help the time pass as I worked, I brought out my CD player. The boy was playing nearby, and wandered over to see how it was progressing.

"What music is that?" he asked.

"Linda Ronstadt," I told him.

He clapped his hands to his face in an unconscious Macaulay Culkin parody and moaned, "Oh no! That means this is going to turn out bad!"

I sighed and sent him inside to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on toast.