Monday, January 19, 2015

I'll Never be a 50s Housewife

Many of you may not be incredibly surprised to hear that I am in no way a domestic goddess.  I cook but rarely, and vacuum and dust even less.  The lack of cooking certainly cuts down on the amount of dishes I have to do, but it also puts a serious dent in my pocket book when I’m forced to rely on fast food too often. 

To be fair to myself, part of the reason I don’t cook too often is that it can be boring to eat the same leftovers for a week.  This is a problem to which I’m sure almost every single person can relate.  There are no recipes (that I can find) that end with food for only one or two people.  And really, I don’t mind a few leftovers (because that’s how I save on lunch) but I don’t think I’ll ever need a recipe that makes food for 8-12 people.

Now, this lack of cooking experience causes another issue.  I almost never know what even the simplest instructions are telling me.  This Saturday, I set aside time (pretty much the whole day) to fix two soup mixes.  They both contained beans that required an overnight soak, as well as several hours of boiling/simmering.  Both recipes told me to “pick over” my beans after I soaked them.  Is anyone else entirely confused by what that means?  Just me?  That’s fine, I took to Google to find that I was supposed to sift through my myriad beans to look for errant rocks.  Why is that a direction?  I understand where this could’ve been a problem back when people picked their own beans…or anytime before quality control.  But is this seriously still a problem today?  Because I don’t want to be the person who finds that errant rock in the midst of supper.  To that end, I did indeed pick over my beans, with nary a rock to be found! 

One recipe told me I needed a “whole chicken breast.”  Now some of you may be laughing at me at this point.  But you were warned that I was confused by simple instructions.  I had to call my mother to consult with her over whether or not this meant one cut or two.  Because they could’ve meant the ENTIRE breast of one chicken, which to me means two cuts.  Mom decided they meant I just needed one cut.  As the recipe also called for a pound of Italian sausage, I figured I’d be fine shorting myself one chicken breast on the outside chance my mom was incorrect.  (Which seemed pretty unlikely)

Now, technically I already knew what to do about this next one, but I figured I should just point out something else obvious. There is a big difference between a clove and a blossom when it comes to garlic.  The blossom is the whole thing, with the many cloves gathered together in the papery husk and tied together at the root.  Now, I’m sure some of you are going “Umm, yeah.  Everybody knows that.”  No, Geico people, not everybody is aware!  As it turns out, vampire movies are a poor way to learn how to cook.  Sure, they teach you the importance of turtlenecks and proper stake care; but when they talk about cloves of garlic and show blossoms, that’s just poor fact checking.  The first time I made a soup that called for 8 cloves of garlic, let’s just say that no vampire would’ve been coming near me anytime soon.  Or many humans for that matter.  I don’t feel too bad for this mistake, because my sister (whom I believe to be one of the smartest individuals around) made the same error around the same time.

Despite my admittedly poor cooking skills, I actually succeeded in creating two really tasty soups that will be lasting me at least a month.  When I’m not eating soup, I’ll be falling back on my specialty of spaghetti.  There may even be a salad or two in my future. 

Now that we’ve covered cooking, let’s talk about my pitiable housekeeping.  While I’m in no danger of having health services called on me, I tend to leave cleaning on the backburner.  For a while.  Okay…for a loooong while.  I’ve been planning to get around to it for the last two weeks, but (of course) kept deciding that I could afford to leave it a bit longer.  Frankly, I’m the only person who sees my apartment, and I didn’t much care to engage in the task.  However, last night my heater (once again) went on the fritz, and I was baking by the time I woke up and realized my thermostat was reading 80 degrees.  I called my landlord and was told that someone would soon be on the way to fix whatever was wrong.

That’s when I had a mild panic attack.  I had stuff everywhere.  While my laundry was done, the clothes were still nestled in their baskets slowly accumulating wrinkles.  Art supplies were everywhere for several different projects.  So I got dressed and became a whirlwind of activity. 
You see, my problem isn’t so much that I dislike cleaning (though I do), it’s that I’m easily sidetracked.  I’ll start on dishes, only to move on to cleaning counters, which (somehow) then leads me to folding my wrinkled laundry.  Then I notice that my knick-knacks are a bit of all over, and I decide to take some of them upstairs.  Frankly, my cleaning style is so ADD, I’m lucky to get anything clean, let alone the whole downstairs.  (For those of you who are wondering—yes, most of my accumulated crap from downstairs ended up somewhere upstairs)

The repairman arrived, and—because I generally dislike sitting around while someone else is being productive—I kept right on cleaning.  By the time the guy left, and my apartment was still sweltering--but on its way to reasonable—the only chore left to do was vacuuming.  Okay, in all honesty, there’s still a lot of dusting to do, but everything looks (mostly) presentable now.  I was so into my cleaning kick that I even moved the party outside and cleaned my car.  I might even be able to see out of my windshield now!

All-in-all, I’ve had a rather productive weekend.  It’s unlikely such events will occur again, but one never knows when I’ll have another appliance break down.  Or perhaps even company!  I’m not holding my breath on that second one…but as I said: who knows?  However, this all just goes to show I never would have made it as a housewife in the 50s.  Well…that and the fact that I believe my opinions actually matter.  But that’s a concern for another day.  I’m exhausted today.

I think I deserve a cocktail and some fries.

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