I’d like to reinstate the tradition of the Sunday roast. For those who have never experienced the custom, it was a ritual passed down the generations from father to son. The father regaled his boys with past glories, of family get togethers and of roasted vegetables and chunks of meat smothered in gravy. His eyes glazed over as he talked about the best cook in the world. I spent hours in the kitchen trying to live up to the fable, peeling, cooking, basting and trying to keep the family tradition alive until my son's girlfriends and other people’s dinner tables saved me.
It’s been a couple of decades since I basted a leg and mashed my last parsnip, but after watching Jamie Oliver and Nigella I find myself, against all natural inclination, longing to do it all over again. Along with thousands of others, I’m yearning to deglaze a pan and smother some Kipfler potatoes in olive oil and garlic. And I want to casually create truffle tarts with raspberries for dessert or something equally decadent. In other words I want to exhaust myself on the altar of haute cuisine. It’s a sacrilegious thought I haven’t had since I cut the shackles that kept me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen several decades ago.
But I can't help myself. There’s been a resurgence of cooking shows and their spin off DVDs and cookbooks. I can’t walk past a kitchen shop without dropping in to lust after a Kyocera Ceramic knife or to finger a scanpan. It’s all I can do to resist a Mezzaluna or pestle and mortar to help me pound my herbs. I confessed my fantasy to a friend, who admitted she was also hooked.
She’s thinking of starting a campaign to have the kitchen replace the theatre room as the centre of the family home. Maybe she and her mob will have a family cook in.
I blame Jamie and Nigella for making it all look easy. Three course meals are completed in a half hour session. One minute they’re peeling a veggie, the next some complex dish is bubbling nicely on the stove. And no matter how many saucepans have gone into the preparation of one dish the bench is always spotless and not a squashed minty pea in sight. I want to know their secret.
We've been lured back into the kitchen, but it's not just the daily grind this time round and it's not just us. My sons handle a spatula with confidence and my son the vegetarian can whip up a gourmet meatless meal before you can say tofu doesn't cause greenhouse gases.
If I close my eyes the memories come thick and fast. I see us all as we were in those heady days. Dad at the head of the table, carving, the boys chattering like monkeys as they set the table, mum trotting in and out of the kitchen bringing on the minty peas and glazed carrots. Just the four of us, my partner and me and the two teenage boys getting stuck into the traditional lamb roast, veggies and conversation.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Pocket Money
When I was ten, my dad gave me a shilling a week pocket money. That’s ten cents to those of you who aren’t familiar with pre-decimal currency. It wasn’t a fortune but given that a tram ride into the city cost three pence at the time (3 cents) it wasn’t too shabby either. You could get a lot of Lemon Drops with that money, Bulls Eyes, Bullets, Milk Bottles and a Choo Choo Bar, and I did. Then I ran out of funds and had to hang out for the next pay packet.
It wasn’t a very satisfactory situation, but given my inability to plan ahead the state of affairs remained the same until I was old enough to get casual work to afford my vices. By then I’d swapped sweets for books. I read all the classics I could get my hands on at one shilling and sixpence a pop (15 cents) and moved on to Science Fiction, three shillings (thirty cents). By the time my tastes had changed again, crime fiction, books were four and six pence, that’s forty five cents. They were still more affordable than they would be today for a child who tended to suck books up like they were bulls eyes; which was lucky for me, because I was no better about saving in my teens than I was when I got my first shilling.
So was there a lesson in there? I didn’t learn how to save (I don’t think it’s in my genes) and I didn’t learn to moderate my spending. But I enjoyed the self-determination that pocket money gave me. And I understood that if I wanted to buy more than my pocket money could provide, it was my responsibility to supply the shortfall and to do that I had to work. I liked working and enjoyed the freedom to buy what I wanted (within reason) without having to ask permission or begging for it. There is something demeaning about being beholden to someone for favours.
At the same time I was equally happy with the no strings attached pocket money situation at home. I wasn’t subtly or overtly blackmailed into earning my pay. It wasn’t a prid quo pro system at our place. (That’s Latin for something for something.) I just took it for granted that my parents did what they did and if children washed a dish or made a bed to help a family unit function then it was a family thing and not to be confused with what was expected of you in the outside world.
Some parents ask themselves and each other, what possible good pocket is money is if it can’t be used to control children. Others believe children should wait till they can get casual work and learn something about the real world. Should I? Shouldn’t I? How much? Every young parent agonises about it. I don’t think there’s a wrong answer; in the end every parent usually makes a decision that is based on his or her personal experience. What I think is that pocket money buys hair ties or lollies or those small toys beloved of little children that fit into tiny hands. While they are spending we can fit in a maths lesson about how much an item is worth, how much (if any) change they would get and how much money they need to save for the more expensive items they crave.
Our children live in an adult world where it is parents who set the ground rules about what to do or not do, what to touch, what to eat and when to sleep. Pocket money allows them some control. It’s up to the parents what sort of lesson they would like their children to learn, but whatever it is they need to bear in mind that their children will return the favour with interest, one day, when the tables are turned.
It wasn’t a very satisfactory situation, but given my inability to plan ahead the state of affairs remained the same until I was old enough to get casual work to afford my vices. By then I’d swapped sweets for books. I read all the classics I could get my hands on at one shilling and sixpence a pop (15 cents) and moved on to Science Fiction, three shillings (thirty cents). By the time my tastes had changed again, crime fiction, books were four and six pence, that’s forty five cents. They were still more affordable than they would be today for a child who tended to suck books up like they were bulls eyes; which was lucky for me, because I was no better about saving in my teens than I was when I got my first shilling.
So was there a lesson in there? I didn’t learn how to save (I don’t think it’s in my genes) and I didn’t learn to moderate my spending. But I enjoyed the self-determination that pocket money gave me. And I understood that if I wanted to buy more than my pocket money could provide, it was my responsibility to supply the shortfall and to do that I had to work. I liked working and enjoyed the freedom to buy what I wanted (within reason) without having to ask permission or begging for it. There is something demeaning about being beholden to someone for favours.
At the same time I was equally happy with the no strings attached pocket money situation at home. I wasn’t subtly or overtly blackmailed into earning my pay. It wasn’t a prid quo pro system at our place. (That’s Latin for something for something.) I just took it for granted that my parents did what they did and if children washed a dish or made a bed to help a family unit function then it was a family thing and not to be confused with what was expected of you in the outside world.
Some parents ask themselves and each other, what possible good pocket is money is if it can’t be used to control children. Others believe children should wait till they can get casual work and learn something about the real world. Should I? Shouldn’t I? How much? Every young parent agonises about it. I don’t think there’s a wrong answer; in the end every parent usually makes a decision that is based on his or her personal experience. What I think is that pocket money buys hair ties or lollies or those small toys beloved of little children that fit into tiny hands. While they are spending we can fit in a maths lesson about how much an item is worth, how much (if any) change they would get and how much money they need to save for the more expensive items they crave.
Our children live in an adult world where it is parents who set the ground rules about what to do or not do, what to touch, what to eat and when to sleep. Pocket money allows them some control. It’s up to the parents what sort of lesson they would like their children to learn, but whatever it is they need to bear in mind that their children will return the favour with interest, one day, when the tables are turned.
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