Food. It’s something that we all share. Well not literally--quit soaking your toes in my Corn Flakes. What’s more, the food you share isn’t as good as the food I share, but I won’t hold it against you. I mean unless you want me to, but I’m hoping you pick something like chocolate over sushi.
Food, it’s the dark secret of divorce. It’s the taboo nobody talks about louder than mouthful mumbles, but we all wear the cracker crumbs of guilt on our sweater vests of denial.
That’s right. Confess it: you eat.
At first, after divorce it’s no big deal; you’re on the divorce diet. It doesn’t matter how many waffle slathered slaughtered hogs you sling over your closet rail; chances are you’re losing at least 10 pounds. The trick is to cure yourself before the meat goes bad and to your hips.
“Mommy, why are the bugs crawling out of the closet?”
“Don’t worry honey. Could you just bring me two eggs and some hash browns, please?”
The pig in the closet isn’t the elephant in the room. That nosey guy is a little more overwhelming. He’s here to expose everything you knew about cooking.
Yup. There it is, I’ve said it. Whether you cook or you don’t, you have to throw out everything you knew about food once your spouse moves out. Remember when one box of Hamburger helper made one meal? Well you might as well put Sally Struthers on speed dial, because if you’re alone, that same box will now feed your barefoot butt for a month.
Trust me, I know of what I speak. The first week I cooked for me alone, I ended up with a bomb shelter stock of surplus. That sounds good, but I only had four meal choices, before I couldn’t shove anything else in, and let me tell ya, I do like dirty rice, but not that much.
“…dirty rice gumbo, dirty rice kabobs, dirty rice smoothies…”
I asked the Pirate Queen about her experience. She said that she buys vegetables just to throw them away. She was gonna put a disposal under the bottom shelf, until I recommended a veggie-pult. She liked that idea better. Pirates always like flying food. Besides, it makes the cilantro pulp sludging the drawer bottom that much more impressive.
I have another friend with an out of sight, out of mind kitchen. If she can’t see it, she throws it away. She won’t let fruit take root in her drawers because the drawers are opaque. She knows her drawers are the Bermuda Triangle of her kitchen, and she’s not sacrificing any more lives to them. She doesn’t believe in leftovers, they’re false gods worshiped by the green goop behind the three-year-old milk. She throws everything out that can’t turn snakes to sticks. I try to avoid her fridge.
“Would you like a beer?”
“No, no, I’m fine. Thanks.”
That’s my big problem: we alter everything else, why can’t we shift our diets into single mode? And why is it that all recipe books with good recipes perpetuate this pattern? I have a library stack dedicated to family meal makers, but only one book for single cooks and it’s all “quick” ideas. What if I want to splurge on me? Where’s my lasagna for one? I promise you, if I make me lasagna, and bring a bottle of wine, I might just get lucky, but the lasagna better be home made.
Sometimes we give up. We wave the little white napkin and turn to fast food or prepared salt lick potpies. That’s no way to stay healthy. So what do we do? How do we sate our appetite without feeding a landfill? If we are what we eat, how do we keep from becoming fluffy buns and fatty beef?
Don’t look at me; I’m a blogger. Bloggers are pithy, not intelligent. Still, I do have a suggestion. Maybe I was right in the beginning. Maybe food is something we can share. What if we had like a divorced food of the month club? I mean we could all register a meal, cook it, and then send some to everybody on the list. This would create new meals for everybody, and no leftovers--every night a new meal coming in the mail. What do you say?
Hey, I’m in if you are. Dirty rice quiche, anybody?
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