Posted by Sheryl Kirby in blog-a-log, on the web on April 5, 2008 at 8:35 am
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink... Water, and wine, seems to be a topic of interest this week. Dana McCauley looks at the choice of tap water over the bottled stuff, while Gina Mallet takes a curmudgeon's view of the recent news reports that we actually don't need 8 glasses of water a day, to recommend we stop drinking the stuff. Of course, Mallet looks at the extreme cases of elite athletes who drink too much water and throw off their electrolyte balance, not us regular couch potatoes. Personally, if I don't get at least 8-8oz glasses of water a day, by the end of the day I feel dry and crunchy - my eyes feel dry, my skin feels dry and I can feel the beginnings of really not fun things like UTIs coming on. I may not need it, but the more water I drink, the better I feel.
In other liquid news, Michael Pinkus of On the Road With the Grape Guy attends a tasting dinner featuring the wines from Tawse Winery, and Dean Tudor of Gothic Epicures VinCuisine announces a new wine contest - Great Expectations of Grand Expectorations Challenge, or GEGEC for short.
Cherries are another pseudo-theme this week with recipes from Ferdzy of Seasonal Ontario Food for sour cherry crisp made from cherries frozen last summer (oh! I can't wait to put my little freezer to good use this year!). At Closet Cooking, Kevin has Lamb Chops in Cherry Port Sauce.
Also... Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice has gorgeous floral cupcakes, Marusya of Recipes For Trouble strolls the aisles of T&T Supermarket, and Candice of Mmm, Tasty! writes about Fiesta Farms.
And while I don't normally include more than one post per blogger, Gina Mallet has an ongoing thread on "food snobs" that is thought-provoking, including a letter from Bryan Burt at Queen's University. Burt makes the comment that "it's gotten to the point that most people don't know how to cook at all", which Mallet in turn flips around and turns into a post about feminism and how "Few women want to become kitchen slaves again now they've seen how much more interesting it is to work with people who aren't dependent relations." I think Mallet is arguing for the sake of being argumentative, mostly because I have to give her more credit than to believe that she actually thinks convenience foods are a woman's ticket to equality.
My Grandmother has cooked 3 meals a day since she was 15 (and admits to hating to cook), but her son, my father, did most of the meal preparation in our house when I was growing up, with everyone pitching in where necessary, including my brother and I. I don't think it has to be just one person, stuck in the kitchen cooking everything themselves, which is how Mallet seems to believe things would be without crap food from boxes.
I'm confused as to why it has to be an all-or-nothing approach, why Mallet (or anyone) thinks only the female of the household has to do the cooking. We gripe about how kids are getting fat, about how they're stuck in front of computers or video games, yet no one seems to be brave enough to hand Junior a peeler and a bag of carrots.
What do you think readers? Does convenience food free women everywhere from kitchen slavery? Does it mean that those of us with an interest in cooking and eating are turning our backs on our feminist sisters? Or does it mean that choosing food from boxes ties us to another, less sympathetic master?
Hey Sheryl,
Interestingly at my blog (thanks for the numerous mentions over the last few months BTW!), men and cooking is one of the most often cited searches that leads people to my pages. From most of the research out there, men treat cooking as a hobby while women - like your gran - view it as a duty or chore.
That said, I did receive some new info in a press kit just a week or so ago that showed men's participation in day-to-day home cooking on the rise in substantial numbers.
At my house I do a lot of the cooking since my hubby is a chef who works most evenings but I do include my 11 year old son in the prep as often as possible. Interestingly, he not only has developed some essential life skills but when he and our 17 year old babysitter are home at meal time, my son is the 'head chef' while the sitter takes instructions from him about how to do the more dangerous stuff like drain the pasta. I whole heartedly agree with you that kids, spouses and every and any other sundry person in a household should be sharing the kitchen duties.
If convenience foods are equated to freedom from "slavery" for women, then my guess is the writer is too in love with convenience foods to consider the alternatives. While the rise in convenience foods may have *historically* helped women to get out of their "traditional" role in the kitchen, come on... it's 2008. If we're there today, it's because we choose to be, not because we're forced to. For that matter, women in the 50's were making a choice too, not being forced... but don't get me started on THAT. :)
Convenience food does not free women from kitchen slavery. It only makes it possible to put dinner on table in 20 minutes after you get home -- just in time for when everyone else arrives home. I'm ashamed to admit that I know this from experience.
"Traditional roles" is a rare thing. Many families need two-incomes to make ends meet, and that means that neither mom *or* dad have the luxury to stay home and cook for a few hours a day. :( Due to today's busy lifestyles, it can be hard for one person to cook, never mind getting other members of the family to help out.
Given the popularity in food/cooking channels, talk shows and whatnot, people long for the "home cooked meal", just like mom used to do.
On the other hand, I'm sure the big corporations don't help either, with smiling mom-type figures preparing meals in commercials on TV -- further putting pressure on people, "Just look how easy it is!".
The 2 extremes here are easy to see...
Hey Raven,
I think you've pretty much nailed it. The one thing I take issue with, and that's to people in general, not you specifically, is the whole "busy lifestyle" thing. It's got nothing to do with food, really, except that the family meal is the first thing that gets left by the wayside - but holy crap, people try and do too much stuff.
This site keeps me as busy as anyone, but Greg and I make a point of eating dinner at home at least 3 or 4 nights a week, even if it means turning down invitations to events. And we eat breakfast together every morning as well. It isn't always easy - I don't bake as often as I'd like, and some nights there's just nothing to cook because I haven't had a chance to get groceries, but dinner together is a priority.
Growing up, extra-curricular activities that kept us away from the dinner table were huge anomalies - a school play once a year, for instance, or a class trip. The rest of the time, activities that took place during lunch, after school, or after dinner in the evenings were fine, but jeez louise, there was hell to pay if we weren't all around that table when my dad was done cooking dinner.
I also don't know about that "getting other members of the family to help out" thing. I'm not a parent myself, but I'd guess I'd be considered a pretty cruel one, because "getting" me to help out as a kid didn't involve asking, it was all about the telling. As in - you live here, peel the potatoes or we don't eat tonight. In the face of childhood obesity and a generation with a *huge* sense of entitlement, I really believe that insisting, not asking, family members to help around the house, especially in the kitchen, would go a million miles to curing some of what ails us as a society.