It’s Been a Hard Day’s Night – Part One – Food | Paxton says | ENTERTAINMENT
It’s Been a Hard Day’s Night – Part One – Food
March/01/08 08:56 PM Filed in: Paxton says
It’s hard work, being a womyn today. We have so
much to juggle, to plan for, to achieve.
The primary focus of many womyn – our daily bread:
Our womyn is responsible for the food eaten by herself and her family. This is, perhaps, the most time consuming and complicated of all of her life tasks. First, she must gather the food. She might go to several stores, trying to find the best deals on the food her family eats. If she’s focusing on the safety and nutritional value of the food she buys, she may go to several specialty stores, a farmers market, an Amish marketplace or the butcher. She may even partake in a community food cooperative, buying in bulk, to buy organic foods more reasonably. She may worry about pesticides, growth hormones, calories and omega3’s – all before her morning cup of coffee!
Once she actually has the food – she must prepare the food. Will the food entice her family, fill their nutritional demands, and satisfy her own food demons? Perhaps she’ll start baking her own bread and bagels, making her own granola, and even grinding her own wheat! Don’t laugh – more and more womyn are returning to basics, finding peace in the routines of their great-grandmothers.
Then, of course, there’s the sharing of the food – the family table. And the inevitable job of cleaning up after the meal, only to prepare for the next one.
Like many womyn my age, I rebelled against the routine of my forbearers. I had better things to do than cook and clean a kitchen. We could eat out, or forage for pre-packaged meals.
Go forward several years: my husband and I are overweight and tired. My children are pale, with dark circles under their eyes, and only eat chicken nuggets and goldfish crackers. Our monthly expenditure on restaurants and fast foods could fund a small nation. Worse yet – we never feel – satisfied. Something’s missing.
I slowly began creating my own unique relationship with my family’s daily bread. It was a horrendous chore at first – and the food left MUCH to be desired. Worse yet – my family was miserable. My husband growled for his cheese burgers, my children whined for their packaged cardboard – and all were mad at ME!
Things eventually improved, including my culinary skills. Today my family eats MUCH almost anything – they trust me to make it tasty. We’re working on increasing whole grains & vegetables, as well as using organic products as far as our budget allows. Part of our problem with our limited food budget is our feelings of denial – we want to be indulged.
I made whole-wheat bagels twice this week. We love bagels, but I’ve never made them. It wasn’t nearly as horrendous as I had anticipated – and the bagels were delicious (though they did seem lumpy to me). Everyone in my family, bar none, was ecstatic. I also made bread a few times – but haven’t found the best recipe, yet. We felt so….treasured by these treats. Even me – and I did the work!
For breakfast I’ve been making steel cut oats – and serving them with butterscotch chips, or cracked grains served with plain yogurt and honey. Yummy, nutritious, and not hard to pull off. My kind of recipe!
Best of all – I feel nurtured, healthy and loved – and so does my family. These real foods satisfy a yearning of my body and soul that the fast foods and restaurant fixes never quite touched. Maybe it’s the leftovers. I take the leftovers and store them in individual containers for my husband to take for lunch, and for me to munch on during a stress-filled day. And it’s amazing, how much better I feel. Of course, I obsess over recipes, and grocery deals, and coupons, and recently about storing flour (the prices are supposed to explode), or even buying a mill and grain and milling my own flour. Someone stop me – PLEASE!!!
Also, to be quite honest, I have to go clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes from the day, so I can make dinner. Nothing fancy tonight, just cheesy grits and ham (and maybe a bagel for desert!). But I know I’ll feel better for doing it.
I still have a LONG way to go – I’m still very ‘hit or miss’ with nutrition. And yet, when I look back, I see how very far I’ve come. Maybe our grandmothers and their grandmothers were on to something – love, health and peace all begin at home – and they start in the kitchen.
Namaste!
The primary focus of many womyn – our daily bread:
Our womyn is responsible for the food eaten by herself and her family. This is, perhaps, the most time consuming and complicated of all of her life tasks. First, she must gather the food. She might go to several stores, trying to find the best deals on the food her family eats. If she’s focusing on the safety and nutritional value of the food she buys, she may go to several specialty stores, a farmers market, an Amish marketplace or the butcher. She may even partake in a community food cooperative, buying in bulk, to buy organic foods more reasonably. She may worry about pesticides, growth hormones, calories and omega3’s – all before her morning cup of coffee!
Once she actually has the food – she must prepare the food. Will the food entice her family, fill their nutritional demands, and satisfy her own food demons? Perhaps she’ll start baking her own bread and bagels, making her own granola, and even grinding her own wheat! Don’t laugh – more and more womyn are returning to basics, finding peace in the routines of their great-grandmothers.
Then, of course, there’s the sharing of the food – the family table. And the inevitable job of cleaning up after the meal, only to prepare for the next one.
Like many womyn my age, I rebelled against the routine of my forbearers. I had better things to do than cook and clean a kitchen. We could eat out, or forage for pre-packaged meals.
Go forward several years: my husband and I are overweight and tired. My children are pale, with dark circles under their eyes, and only eat chicken nuggets and goldfish crackers. Our monthly expenditure on restaurants and fast foods could fund a small nation. Worse yet – we never feel – satisfied. Something’s missing.
I slowly began creating my own unique relationship with my family’s daily bread. It was a horrendous chore at first – and the food left MUCH to be desired. Worse yet – my family was miserable. My husband growled for his cheese burgers, my children whined for their packaged cardboard – and all were mad at ME!
Things eventually improved, including my culinary skills. Today my family eats MUCH almost anything – they trust me to make it tasty. We’re working on increasing whole grains & vegetables, as well as using organic products as far as our budget allows. Part of our problem with our limited food budget is our feelings of denial – we want to be indulged.
I made whole-wheat bagels twice this week. We love bagels, but I’ve never made them. It wasn’t nearly as horrendous as I had anticipated – and the bagels were delicious (though they did seem lumpy to me). Everyone in my family, bar none, was ecstatic. I also made bread a few times – but haven’t found the best recipe, yet. We felt so….treasured by these treats. Even me – and I did the work!
For breakfast I’ve been making steel cut oats – and serving them with butterscotch chips, or cracked grains served with plain yogurt and honey. Yummy, nutritious, and not hard to pull off. My kind of recipe!
Best of all – I feel nurtured, healthy and loved – and so does my family. These real foods satisfy a yearning of my body and soul that the fast foods and restaurant fixes never quite touched. Maybe it’s the leftovers. I take the leftovers and store them in individual containers for my husband to take for lunch, and for me to munch on during a stress-filled day. And it’s amazing, how much better I feel. Of course, I obsess over recipes, and grocery deals, and coupons, and recently about storing flour (the prices are supposed to explode), or even buying a mill and grain and milling my own flour. Someone stop me – PLEASE!!!
Also, to be quite honest, I have to go clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes from the day, so I can make dinner. Nothing fancy tonight, just cheesy grits and ham (and maybe a bagel for desert!). But I know I’ll feel better for doing it.
I still have a LONG way to go – I’m still very ‘hit or miss’ with nutrition. And yet, when I look back, I see how very far I’ve come. Maybe our grandmothers and their grandmothers were on to something – love, health and peace all begin at home – and they start in the kitchen.
Namaste!