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Faux Moi

2012-02-06T21:46:25Z

You should have seen me Saturday night, wiping salt off my tongue. Not wiping. That’s too civilized a description. With a force of desperation, I was dragging a linen napkin over my tongue, from top to bottom, top to bottom. Occasionally I’d jam a finger in and wrap it around my tongue to scoop out more of the assaulting mess. The chunky, sandy NaCl tasted repulsive — more like putrid coffee grounds that wouldn’t dissolve than the tempting bits of crystal at the bottom of the Snyder’s bag.

Generally having a mouthful of an offensive substance would be annoying, not embarrassing. But Saturday evening was no average time. Dolled up with a sequin dress and styled hair, I was attending a wine-pairing dinner at Norman’s, a posh restaurant within Orlando’s Ritz-Carlton. And I wasn’t sitting at a quiet two-top with just my husband, who would have chuckled and rolled his eyes at my mishap (he has grown quite accustomed to them). Sharing our large round table, which was surrounded dramatically by glass walls lined with wine bottles, were, among others, a Master Sommelier and a magazine publisher.

You don’t want these kinds of folks eyeing you as you drag granular white crud out of your mouth with a wad of cloth as if you’re a certain redhead in an I Love Lucy episode, all the while silently pleading with your body not to gag. And you really don’t want them knowing the source of your discomfort. But I’ll confide in you: Without paying attention, sort of thinking the blur of snow beneath my Wianno Oysters Duo must be the “horseradish foam” mentioned on the menu, I’d scooped up a forkful of rock salt from the bottom of the plate and nonchalantly shoveled a tablespoon-sized portion through my lips.

Faux pas.

I hadn’t noticed the white dots atop each oyster, which was surely the foam – although the enticing accents could have been instead the jicama or the Chardonnay Fog Dance Vineyards granita, a kind of super-fancy Icee. But in typical Rona fashion, I was paying no attention to the details as I supped enthusiastically while engaged in the table’s assorted conversations.

I’d like to tell you that the seemingly scandalous salt screw-up was my only error that evening. Not so. During the champagne reception earlier, a sprightly young waiter walked over to us carrying an hors d’oeuvres tray. I reached down and plucked up a mini beef empanada. As instructed, I dipped my savory pastry into a small bowl containing a deep golden plantain sauce. And, Rona being Rona, I accidentally let go of that turnover, plopping it right into the sauce. I probably shouldn’t admit that I had a cold so, although I'd washed my hands, the fingers with which I’d held that empanada might not have been super sanitized.

The waiter trotted away to get a new dip. The three dozen empanadas and croquettes still on the tray surely lost their sizzle by the time the server got them back into the dining room.

I felt like a hero though. Truly, I did, and here’s why: because I didn’t dip my hand into the bowl and scoop out the empanada.

To you, I’m sure, that’s not worth mentioning. Well, you’re not Rona. Just a week before, I’d been enjoying an extraordinary feast at the Flying Fish Chef’s Chef’s Tasting Wine Experience. Part of the shtick with this five-course meal is that a chef delivers each course to your seat and shares tales of the ingredients’ origins. I attended on a night when the chef de cuisine himself, Tim Keating, was working. He brought over a little bowl similar to the one that held Saturday night’s plantain sauce. In it were light brown bits called wattle seeds, which Keating explained is a ridiculously expensive delicacy from Australia. “Here, it tastes a bit like coffee,” Keating said. He dipped in a utensil, drew out a speck and put it on his tongue. I took the utensil, couldn’t get the wattle seeds onto it, so put two fingers in and took a pinch.

Uh-oh.

I wish that blunder had been just a faux pas. I must have cost Flying Fish a bundle, as its culinary team is ultra food-safety conscious. I’m sure those wattle seeds went right into the rubbish. And I’ll bet Keating will show future guests cheap foodstuffs like, er, garbanzos.

There’s a lesson in this, and it’s not to keep me off the invite list for gourmet dinners. I hope you’ve learned that I’m a great guest at any frou-frou function. Unintentionally, I’m always good for a laugh.

www.RonaGindin.com

Love Your Body. It’ll Betray You Soon Enough

2012-01-03T16:03:14Z

A dear friend sat with a plastic surgeon recently, as stunned as she was offended. Her breast, it seems, can’t be reconstructed right after her upcoming mastectomy for reasons irrelevant here. The shocker wasn’t the news; it was the M.D.’s attitude. “Why would you care?” the doctor asked uncaringly, although not in those exact words. “After all, you’re 75.”

Seventeen or 75, we’re women and we care about looking like a woman and feeling like one. How dare that doctor dismiss her concern! To point, my friend isn’t an invalid living her final days in our beautiful world (although, knowing her, if she were she’d be dabbing on lipstick around an oxygen tube). “Bertie” is an attractive, active and independent person who happens to be facing the inconvenience of treatment for Stage 1 cancer. She’ll have surgery; she’ll recover; she’ll be at the canasta table in no time, keeping score, making wisecracks, and gossiping about the other vibrant ladies with equally deteriorating bodies in her Florida subdivision’s clubhouse.

As a woman heading into the years of medical maladies, I had two reactions upon hearing about this prissy practitioner’s insensitivity. First, I am so outraged that I have been obsessing about the doctor’s gall since I heard what she said. What woman wouldn’t care about having a blank space where her breast used to be? How can a seemingly intelligent woman (Dr. Cold) be so callous to another female’s desire to maintain an essential part of her feminine physique? Second, I see Bertie’s situation — being a lively, on-the-ball spunkster who apparently looks insignificant to strangers — as my path. I doubt any of us escape that kind of diminishment unless we die before our bodies slowly betray us.

Like many healthy middle-aged women, I’ve long wondered how my elderly friends came to while away countless hours in doctor’s offices, to be stuck swallowing rainbows of pills three times a day, and to evolve to a slow and careful gait when once they bolted like I do from place to place.

Then one day, during a dental cleaning, my hygienist froze up and asked, fright in her voice, “Has anyone ever mentioned a black spot on the floor of your mouth before?” Likewise, my eye always feels as if it has dirt stuck under the upper lid, causing me to contort my face to gain 30 seconds of relief. Do I have to mention that my knees sometimes hurt?

These are small matters. The oral issue was a harmless “amalgam tattoo,” caused when I had old fillings replaced. The eye is an annoyance but not dangerous. The knees are at Step 1 of wearing out.

But these trivial issues, these physical inconveniences, these pesky aches, pains, irritations and growths, are the start of aging. They’re camouflaged by a confident gait and a hearty handshake. Yet over the years, as I head into my 60s, my 70s, my 80s, my 90s, they’ll affect me more. They’ll have company. Misbehaving organs, easily fractured bones, and wrinkles I care not to envision … by the time I’m 75, they’ll have me looking like a little old lady who wouldn’t give a thought to having my boob sliced off and not replaced with a suitable fake.

Oh my.

www.RonaGindin.com

Food Bloggers: Keep Your Day Jobs

2011-10-12T16:53:49Z

“I am a underwriter by day.”*

Well that’s it. This food blogger surge must stop.

Every house in every subdivision, it seems, is home to a food blogger. In every apartment, petite or palatial, sits a would-be scribe compelled to share the joy of each smoky slab of ribs, silky slice of pie or chilled glass of single-origin iced coffee consumed. This I-shoulda-been-a journalist flits 10 fingers across a laptop keyboard by night, interspersing pedestrian photos with enthusiastic, if unpolished, prose.

I wouldn’t care about the Internet’s overwhelming wad of food bloggers … if the amateurs weren’t getting undue attention.

This will come across as bitter no matter how carefully I say it, although, as you’ll see, that’s truly not my intent: The food bloggers who are savvy about getting their work before loads of pairs of eyeballs are also now getting prime invitations. They’re seated beside me and my ilk at media events; in the past, we were a closed-to-the-public posse of like-minded souls, passionate pros who get as enthusiastic about a cunning pun as a sensationally seasoned caramelized onion. Occasionally, the new bevy of bloggers is seated at such events instead of the credible crews.

I can see why. Credentialed critics might write a glowing feature — or snarl about a soggy salad. If we’re unimpressed, we may not give the host establishment any ink at all. Our magazines/newspapers/books/websites have limited space and we use our precious column inches to guide our readers to the best meals possible. Bloggers, by contrast, seem giddy to be gallivanting to restaurant tables all over town. As thanks for passage into the inner sanctum, they’ll produce virtual pages upon pages of glowing praise — of course with hopes of receiving new evites in the future.

Many bloggers are discriminating, to be sure, and they are due full respect. Others tend simply to write about the basics. I’d like to share two examples. At one recent media dinner for a new restaurant, an egg was lovingly cooked for 55 minutes sous-vide style. Its creamy yolk and satiny white were served atop a frisée salad dotted with bacon lardons and tossed with celeriac dressing, the whole a complement to a seared King salmon fillet. A food blogger — a really neat gal who does a respectable job — summed up her detailed description about the egg thus: “It was very enjoyable.”

That’s clear. It’s straightforward. And if I handed an editor an opinion like that, I’d … well, I’d be an untethered food blogger with no source of income. The pains of food writing — the tortured eons we long-timers loathe — are due to the challenge of descriptive writing. “Very enjoyable” is fine. It’s also an easy way out. By contrast, think about how many times you’ve read a review mentioning a restaurant’s crab cakes. “Very enjoyable” would be unacceptable. Even a predictable sentence like, “The golden-brown discs were filled with well-seasoned chunks of tender crabmeat and plated with a spicy remoulade” wouldn’t do. It would once, actually — but what about the next time that food writer describes a crab cake? That one would need to be differentiated from the first. Not easy stuff.

Here’s the second example of writing that could have more umph. A local luxury hotel flew (I presume) a bunch of New York-based food bloggers into town to cover a culinary extravaganza. Reporting on a special breakfast, one of the guests did what bloggers do well. She wrote a lo-o-o-ong piece and inserted several photos. "And the peacock rug!! I want one in my apartment! ” she cooed. “Handsome devil, isn’t he? ” she said of the chef. Cute stuff. We see creative juice concoctions, honey-truffle butter … all appropriate. And then – ta-dum – “I also drank a cup of coffee with breakfast.” Below was an image of coffee being poured into a fine china cup. Really? (The blog received 35 comments, so obviously she is meeting a need in the marketplace. I’m bewildered as to why.)

I could offer restaurants and hotels the same service – easily, in fact, since I can whip up a written sentence as speedily as that handsome hotel chef can get an omelet from pan to table. I can snap a bunch of photos with my camera, iPhone or iPad and fill up this blog with a lo-o-o-ong combo of images and explanations. I don’t in part because I don’t have time; writing is my livelihood, not a hobby, so I’m repulsed at the idea of doing more once I shut down the workday. (Food bloggers, by contrast, are often engineers, accountants or full-time moms by day; I can certainly relate to their urge to delve into food writing as a hobby.) I also tend to find food blogs boring. I don’t mean that as an insult. I just don’t know why anyone would want to see photos of some other layman's meal along with lengthy descriptions for each one.

I do blog some. On this site, I test out new kinds of writing and venture into topics unrelated to my paid work. My website, by contrast, has what I call a bloggy area on the home page; readers find a regularly changing roster of restaurant and travel news. My goal is to have a lively site so editors and publishers seeking assistance will be impressed enough to hire me for writing gigs. It’s a success.

So I’m not bitter. I have the wherewithal, the reputation and the contacts to be Chief Food Blogger Babe in my market should I so chose. I’m just … dismayed. Although I Tweet and blog and manage three Facebook pages, I’m exhausted by the constantly changing virtual world and the need to keep up with it. I also like having an editor polish my work, a luxury blog posts lack, including mine.

I humbly accept that I’ll be a guest at fewer media meals as the hip techno-whiz food bloggers take my seat, since those go-getters give most venues more press than I do. They tend to be a spirited, intelligent and passionate group of up-and-comers, and I wish them no ill will. In fact, I admire them. But will I feel a little sad, a tad cranky, the next time I read that a bunch of them “checked in” at a new restaurant's grand opening ? Of course. That’s how we people react.

*As for that quote up top, “I am a underwriter by day”: I happened upon a blog today that featured a contest to win a cute apron. That quote is part of the author’s bio. Here’s where I do get mad: That’s not proper English. Get an editor, or get out of the business.

I do like that apron, though. Most of mine are faded and stained shmatas from past restaurant media events.

(See, I can play the picture game.)

I should consider buying that retro-chic apron even though it is $36. I may not be gifted another one at a restaurant media event anytime soon. That would be fine, but the thought of “a underwriter” wearing a freebie makes me mad.

Eat well,

Rona

www.RonaGindin.com

Potty Training

2011-08-05T14:58:58Z

Do you see these paint swatches? The rainbow of pinks – not one of them the rich beige with a faint hint of pink that I desperately want?

Here we go again. Following our monstrous kitchen renovation we’re tackling the bathroom, which is currently a bare shell that stinks of drywall and primer and is stripped to its rotted walls and cracked cement floors.

Those pinks are our attempt to choose a paint color for the walls. Here’s the problem: I don’t want to paint the walls. I want to put up a nice wallpaper, maybe a floral, perhaps a subtle textured one.

But I can’t. Like kitchen cabinets, which have been replaced universally by drawers, wallpaper is taboo. Stores still sell it. I can buy it, and hang some beautifully designed panels on the walls in the master suite. Yet they are forbidden. You know that elusive rulebook – the one that says owners of upper middle class homes must have countertops made of anything but Formica, have their eyebrows waxed (if female), never wear pantyhose with open-toe shoes (even if snow covers your car), and buy only stainless steel kitchen appliances? That rulebook also bans wallpaper. Until a few month ago, in fact, my kitchen was covered in a beautiful contemporary floral — and visitors who didn’t snicker behind my back made comments like, “That’s what I love about you, Rona. You’re not afraid to be different.” I did not know I was being different.

So now we’re in bathroom mode, struggling to pair a paint color with travertine tiles

and wooden cabinets so heavy that we can’t move them out of our dining room to see how they look with selections from the color wheel. Michael and I will spend Saturday darting from bathroom to dining room to the Benjamin Moore store, trying to assess various hues in ever-changing light in a trio of spaces, and then take a plunge.

Once the walls are painted, we will be on our way to getting the bathroom back in order. We like antiqued copper cabinet handles and such, but have ordered brushed nickel, because apparently that’s the way it works in August 2011. We could have stayed with the elegant deep yellow brass fittings we already had, since we’re keeping the tub that was adorned with them 19 years ago, but our very insistent contractors made sure we knew that was the wrong decision. So far, I have chosen not to replace the mirrored doors to the walk-in closet; they’re framed in brass, though, so I may be forced to throw away yet more money and ditch those too.

I’ll need the mirrors, because we won’t have medicine cabinets. The contractors did begrudgingly relent to install medicine cabinets for us but only after warning us that “people like a more streamlined look now.” They don’t fit easily because our walls are shallow and filled with plumbing pipes, so I gave in. I’ll have to stroll elsewhere to pop a pill.

Did I mention the toilet? Ours worked perfectly well. I liked it fine. Only nowadays owners of upscale homes who redo bathrooms install “comfort height” units. They’re higher off the ground so we don’t have to struggle to squat so low. (I never struggled; did you?) I assume I’ll love it like I do the kitchen drawers, but my goodness. Does it also have to come with a soft-close lid so there’s no loud bang when the top slams down? It’s a toilet, people!

Heaven help us all. The minute this reno is done, I’ll discover that brushed nickel is from the devil, medicine cabinets are the hottest trend, and toilets have been replaced by holes in the ground. Since I won’t have a medicine cabinet, I’ll need a new place to find that Valium, and I will need it fast.

Rona

www.RonaGindin.com

Band Camp? Maybe If It Had A/C

2011-08-02T15:02:25Z

Ryan has a brutal upper respiratory infection. He’s lucky. Why? Because if he felt good, if his nose and throat and head and glands weren’t swollen and achy, he’d be at band camp.

This is what band camp means: a full 8 a.m.to 4 p.m. day out in the blistering Florida sun. He’s no wuss, Ryan. He has spent much of his 14 years kicking soccer balls and hitting baseballs and shooting basketballs under our searing skies – not happily, perhaps, but effectively. It’s inhumanely hot and humid in the Sunshine State from May through September, so suffering through unbearable temperatures is a way of life, especially for an active kid.

Band camp must be worse, because as of yesterday afternoon three students had already fainted. Yup, lost consciousness and crumpled while learning how to march in creative formations while making beautiful music. These are high school teenagers, presumably hardy and healthy.

Isn’t something wrong here?

My friend Cathy and I snorted about this during a band camp informational meeting last week, childishly rolling our eyes as the parents in charge talked about the refreshment-slash-first-aid tent with its cold drinks and bug bite remedies. We hoped the speakers were exaggerating.

Ryan enjoyed band in middle school. He played his instruments with pride and got excited about select pieces of music chosen for concerts. I’m afraid band camp will turn him off from the French horn and mellophone. And in case you’re wondering: Marching band is mandatory for all high school band students in the county, and band camp – which starts an offensive three weeks before school opens for the term — is part of it.

I see this as representative of an overall trend of too much. My friend’s daughter enjoyed being a cheerleader but dropped out when the coach insisted she had to pretty much devote her life to it all year. Nearly every children's sport is too serious now. While some kids really take to, say, golf or lacrosse, others would like to play a different game each season. The leagues are so intense that that’s hard. After a certain age, you have to keep your skills up so you can retain respect. Take time out for a season of tennis? You'll lose your edge. What about having a little fun?

I wince every time Ryan moans. I empty bag after bag of used tissues. I feed him Advil and Sudafed and beg him to try a mugful of tea with honey. But in a way, I think he’s better off sofabound than at band camp. Of course, he'll have to start attending once he shakes this bug. Let's hope he doesn't drop out — or drop to the ground.

Rona

www.RonaGindin.com

Hear Me Roar

2011-05-06T17:48:00Z

One fine spring day in Oneonta, New York, my college friend Chris and I bolted out of her car in a bank parking lot while belting out the words to Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.” Newspaper editors, serious students and overall ambitious young women, we were giddy with possibilities – until we came face to face with Clifford Craven, our school principal. We clammed up. We uttered “Hello, Dr. Craven.” We scurried into the building and then, of course, broke into giggles.

A happy, funny memory now, gilded with the halo of a 34-year friendship – and somehow relevant to my topic at hand: Hear Me Roar.

I’m on this kick because my friend Rebecca, as mentioned in my last blog, “Picky, Picky,” sent her family a curt e-mail.

Dear Family:

I am about to start a healthy lifestyle. I want to let all 3 of you know I need (after many years) some time for myself daily. I will be taking time to eat right, exercise and improve my unhealthy lifestyle.

I will NOT be responsible for all the household mess and constant cleaning, organizing, scheduling, repairing etc any more. You need to do your part and take care of your things .

A healthy Mom is a happy Mom. Keep this in mind and your life will not be in jeopardy. Ha.

Take care of your lives responsibly.

Mom

As Mother’s Day rolls around, I find Rebecca’s letter not just inspiring, but invigorating. Before work this morning, I dragged a 14-year-old out of bed (at 8:15!), picked up a dirty pizza slicer off the new rug, put away the cutting boards and pans in the dishwasher that the others would merely place on the counter, walked dirty dishtowels to the hamper because surely no one else would touch them, and packed a lunch that did not need a mother’s touch.

I set myself up for these tasks, I know. I could either fight to the death to have others do them, or I could let them go. I can choose to be angry or opt to feel I’m doing them because it’s my choice to do them. Mostly, I fell into these routines because, honestly, when the kids were little I enjoyed the nurturing parts of housework such as folding baby laundry and filling sippy cups with milk. Somehow – and I’m not alone here – that evolved into becoming the family doormat.

Most of the time, like most mothers I know, I just do this rote work around the house without thinking much about it. Then, like most mothers I know, I occasionally find myself screaming, “Get over here right now and pick this fork up off the floor! And you! Yes you! Grab every one of those soda cans and march them over to the recycle bin? And you? You! Stick that cutting board in this cabinet. No this one! Here! HERE! NOW!”

Hear me roar. See the mood pass. Watch me pick up the same-old routine.

I wonder if Rebecca had better luck sticking to her guns. I hope her roar had stick-to-it-iveness behind it. If so, I’m signing up for lessons.

Rona

www.RonaGindin.com

Picky, Picky

2011-04-22T21:02:00Z

Toppling out of a meeting at my kid’s school 8 o’clock at night, famished and damn sick of the black pumps squeezing my toes, I was happy to learn that Son No. 1 had remembered to take the chicken wings dinner I’d prepared in advance out of the oven. Until I read his text: “Please never make them again.” Pissed, I scrolled to the next message, from my husband: “Wings for me? They’re all skin.”

Yup. I’d worked all morning, schlepped down to a luncheon in said fashionable footwear, worked some more, dragged a whiny exhausted teenager through rabid traffic to get his passport photo taken, re-braved the congested road to deposit him at home, stuck chicken wings I’d lovingly marinated hours before into the G.E. Profile, set the timer, and raced to the middle school to make the mandatory meeting for band students’ parents. I felt like quite the accomplished working mom for getting dinner into a hungry family’s mouths when I wasn’t even home. So I was enraged.

So enraged, in fact, that I shoved the texts in the face of my friend Cathy, who was unlucky enough to be walking nearby. “I know exactly what you mean!” she said. What?! It turns out her husband, son and daughter are also pains in the tush when it comes to supper. Her trio had been so negative at meals lately, in fact, each one whining about something unpleasant on the plate, that she got fed up: “I threatened not to make them anything to eat for a week,” she shares. “They’ve been really quiet since.” She also took action: Cathy cooked her own childhood favorite, an undeniably unhip entree called Swiss steak, along with green beans and mashed potatoes, and calmly ate her share while the others were forced to follow suit without complaint. They did.

Her friend Rebecca got so fed up with her kvetching family that she sent the lot of them a group e-mail. It wasn’t about distressing dinner dynamics per se, but about the general subject of doing some tasks themselves. “I was 25 minutes away recently when my husband called to tell me he was hungry,” Rebecca recalls. “I wasn’t leaving yet and wouldn’t be home for more than an hour! There was nothing I could do about it!” So, in the online letter, she told her husband, son and daughter to step up and do whatever they're capable of (cooking, laundry, etc.), and she'll step in when it's essential. When it comes to dinner, her crew isn’t too picky, but there is the son who doesn’t like seafood … .

So I’m not the only one whose family doesn’t shut up and eat dinner, or even step up to the stove now and then? I feel better, truth be told. Still, there is not one single meal in the universe that all four of us enjoy. My husband has no interest in a simple dinner such roast chicken or grilled steak or chop, baked potato and steamed vegetable – a weekday staple in my repertoire. He wants a sauce, preferably robustly spiced, and indeed often doesn’t touch the spud. The greens? Eats ‘em, but like they’re a sour-tasting medicine. Also on the “not my favorite” list: potted meat (bye-bye stew), chopped meat (adios burgers and meatloaf), plus fish, veal and lamb. Let’s emphasize his lack of joy when it comes to vegetables. Then there’s the fat/cholesterol phobia. Just as he’s afraid the chicken skin on wings will clog his arteries and strike him dead as he swallows, he’ll protest any non-lean entrée. To be clear, that rules out beef, cheese, cream, butter and bacon in nearly any form, not to mention anything fried – although “sautéed in olive oil” is happily overlooked since it reaps foods he adores. Would you like to hear about the gobs of mayonnaise he puts on his turkey sandwich? The gallons of gravy in which he drowns his roast turkey? Apparently those don’t count.

Son No. 1 was born a picky eater and will always be one. He’s trying to change, at 18, and in fact boldly tasted tuna fish for the first time last week. You heard me right. Tuna. He also sampled his first brisket and gyro the same day. He has never, ever, had a sip of soup. “Wet food seems so gross,” he explains.

Son No. 2 shares my passion for flavors and will one day indulge the way I do. With his teenage attitude, though, I hear, “I don’t like cheese” and “I don’t like tomato sauce” as reasons for dismissing dinner dishes. This child eats some form of pizza every day. I assume you see the disconnect.

So dinner sounds like this. “Eww, what’s the sauce?” “This chicken really doesn’t have any flavor.” “Why do you always have to put a piece of potato on my plate? You know I’m not going to eat it.” “The steak is dry and it doesn’t have a lot of flavor like the one at Logan’s does.” “What’s this green stuff?”

Fooey, I say.

Which bring us to the wings.

I’ve been bored by the few dinners that any three out of four of us will eat – chicken parmigiana, low-fat cheese lasagna (I was allowed to add that to the repertoire about five years ago as long as I use the dry flavorless low-fat ricotta and mozzarella and a jar of Rao’s marinara and omit the parsley), some delicious braised chicken dish from which I dig out hunks of virgin unsauced white meat for the flavor-phobic kid who is technically a man -- so I figured I’d try wings last night. They’re from a wonderful cookbook series called Canal House Cooking and they involve sticking wings in a bowl with tarragon, olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper; letting them sit around for while; and then baking them until the skin sizzles and the flesh is tender.

Not a hit. Except with me. I like them so much that I think I’ll make them again next week, just for spite. I am learning from Cathy.

Don’t whine at my dinner table,

Rona

www.RonaGindin.com

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

2011-03-01T15:32:00Z

Low-grade terror of spills, stains and general culinary chaos aside, I decided to cook for company in my new kitchen.

That’s a normal thing to do, right? Yet I hesitated. I still struggle with the layout of my renovated kitchen, which has had me incessantly wiping counters, cabinets and floors for a month. My silverware, my cups, my garlic press, my food processor – it takes three tries to find each item because nothing is where it had been for 13 years. I go for a fork and discover oven mitts. I aim for the citrus squeezer and reap sandwich bags. But I can pull off a simple dinner, surely. What could go wrong?

Ha.

I did think of pushing the date back to Sunday afternoon so I could serve brunch instead. I’d pick up some bagels, buy smoked salmon and cream cheese, brew a pot of Zabar’s coffee – almost no need to tackle the intimidating cocina.

But no. People have friends over for casual dinners. I can do this, I decided.

So I tried to keep it simple … and failed. Instead of throwing together the standard appetizer, entrée and dessert, I put together an ambitious menu and then spent a large part of the day shopping and chopping. Chicken fricassee with lemons plucked from the backyard tree. Red potatoes browned and roasted with rosemary. A garlicky white bean puree. Salad, to increase the workload (all that rinsing, tearing, blotting!), with a simple mustard vinaigrette. Vidalia onions roasted and topped with a gentle splash of balsamic vinegar. And here’s where the trouble came in: salmon.

I have this cast iron reversible grill/griddle contraption that’s flat on one side and ribbed on the other. It weighs as much as my 14-year-old and is just as challenging to get clean. Moreover, grease splatters all over the stove when I dare place meat on its red-hot surface. Yet the recipe called for grilling salmon on the barbie and this gadget is generally an apt substitute.

To make the “sauce,” I spent a wedge of the afternoon grating lemon rind and mincing green olives, anchovies and parsley. Once the goods were all in miniscule pieces and combined, I set them aside. When the company arrived and we sat down for salad, I turned on the burners under the grill, waited until it the metal got hot, lovingly placed a side of bright red Alaskan salmon skin-side down and covered the fish loosely with foil, my workaround for closing the lid of a traditional outdoor barbecue, as the recipe suggested.

No big deal, you think? Me too. Except that the kitchen started getting smoky. “Don’t think about it,” I responded to everyone in the room. “It’ll pass when the fish is ready.” Then the adjacent family room got so smoky that a 4-year-old’s father, looking a bit panicked, insisted the kid sit with us in the dining room until the air cleared; we were closer to the exit. The air was nearly an opaque white, I admit, but by this time we’d opened the patio and front doors and turned on a vent and a fan, so it seemed safe to dig into dinner while the smog subsided. The battery-operated smoke alarm started beeping intermittently. “No worries,” I advised. Then the wired smoked alarm chimed in.

I heard the phone ring and hollered to my husband to pick up. He’d stepped outside, it turns out, and I was in the middle of transferring this lovely filet onto a platter, determined to keep it whole -- so no one took the call. Once I got all the food on the table, including the salmon with olive sauce, I thought to see if the security company had checked in on us. It had. I called back and said, “There’s no fire here. Tell the firemen not to come.”

I hung up and immediately saw a very large man in a big bulky coat with a shiny black and red hat stroll through my front door. Yup, the rescue team had responded in record time. “You can leave,” I told him. “There was just a little smoke from cooking dinner.”

With a confident smile, this heroic public servant refused to budge until he cleared the air with a very effective megafan. As one room after another lost its milky sheen, other firefighters stepped in. I tried repeatedly to shoo these nice men away, afraid the food would soon be too cold to taste good. I even invited them to stay and join us. As long as we could eat. “Do you want me to make you a plate?” I offered. “We have plenty.” They said they’d just downed dinner yet they lingered, inexplicably.

My only frustration at that point was that we couldn’t yet sample that pseudo-tapenade. “Rona, I’m surprised you’re so calm considering what’s going on,” one guest observed. I was perplexed. Why wouldn’t I be calm -- and then realized that most people’s Friday night dinners have no drama. At all.

“Oh, this is typical for around here,” I shrugged. “Things like this happen all the time.”

We don’t generally have fan-wielding superheroes stomping through the dining room, but pandemonium is rote.

The firemen did, eventually, say their farewells. And I did, in end, serve my guests smoked salmon.

Rona

RonaGindin.com

P.S. As it turns out, I was right to fear using my kitchen. The smoke left a stubborn brown stain on my brand new Silestone quartz countertop. I chose Silestone because I’d read that “quartz” products are nearly indestructible. That’s not true. Rona’s fancy-schmancy kitchen is marred.

P.S. 2. I do not blame Zeljko the Kitchen Guru for this mess. He urged us strongly to get granite with a busy pattern.

Fear of Frying

2011-02-15T16:19:00Z

Take a look at this picture. It’s a blah picture of a spoon rest on a plastic plate, right? Oh no. It’s more than that. This is Michael and me being scared of our kitchen. This is an image of spoon rest on a plastic plate so the metal won’t somehow destroy the counter under it.

Give me back my hovel.

Our entire kitchen was ripped out and replaced recently. The old one was decrepit. We used it freely. Splattering sauces, smashing cherries … you think up the messiest culinary occurrences, and you can bet that we did them regularly and with abandon.

Then, the first day our new kitchen was complete, I did something I’ve been doing since I moved into this house 14 years ago: I opened a can. I emptied it. I rinsed it. And I put it on the counter above the sink, where I have long gathered items headed for the recycling bin the garage. Only this time, for reasons no one can understand, the wet can left a rusty-looking ring on the counter.

If I had one of those high-style stainless steel counters, that might make sense. Or maybe another Formica counter, since that’s inexpensive – although I’ve never encountered a stubborn rust stain on a Formica counter in two decades of living with them. This rambunctious rusty ring is on a “haiku”-colored slab of Silestone, on which we splurged for the sole reason that we thought it would be indestructible.

Oops. “There must be a way to get it out,” our kitchen guru Zeljko assures me.”The stain must be on top of the Silestone.” I’m not about to take Brillo to my zillion-dollar countertop to find out if it will damage the shiny surface further, so that faint half-circle may be part of my life for as long as I Iive here.

That’s doable. Cooking in terror isn’t. At some point, when Michael’s attention is elsewhere, I will dare to remove that ugly plastic plate from below the oft-used spoon rest. I will hope really hard that no permanent mark will form. I will also wipe, mop, dust and otherwise compulsively clean every element of that kitchen every time I step into it lest I be forced to undergo another grueling renovation. Most people clean up regularly, I know. I never did. I was comfortable in my negligence. Now I tidy in a panic-induced delirium lest this heart of my home morph into a disastrous den of decadence like last one.

Home clean home. Eh.

www.RonaGindin.com

Maybe an Easy-Bake Oven Will Help

2011-01-16T22:42:00Z

Even I had to laugh when the smoke alarm went off. I was crouched to the ground of the hallway outside the kids’ rooms gently smashing hamburgers against the twin heated serrated panels of a hand-me-down George Foreman grill. My knee tendons were ready to burst through the skin, my feet cramped from the weight of my contorted body, yet I was determined to serve something resembling a home-cooked meal to my family – even if none of us could get too excited about the results. While I tried to figure out how you tell when the meat is cooked through while it’s hidden from view in the opaque appliance, meanwhile jostling the paper plates and plastic utensils that we’d be using in lieu of serviceware that doesn’t flop over under weight, I heard the insistent high-pitched EHHH EHHH EHHH of the hardwired alarm – and then the urgent ringing of the telephone, which of course was the security company checking in on us.

I chuckled, but I was faking. I was on Day Four of a major home renovation that included ripping out the kitchen, and I was – choose your cliché: at wit’s end, coming apart at the seams, unglued. I was so tense that neither wine nor Atavan made a difference. I ordered yoga DVDs and tried bizarre “positions” with names like downward dog paired with breathing exercises. I was so tense that it physically hurt to live in my body.

Objectively, I overreacted. People have real problems: long-term unemployment, sick children, life-threatening illnesses, no home at all. If I were unlucky enough to be among that population, surely a kitchen renovation wouldn’t faze me a bit.

But I’m happy and healthy in general, and aware that I’m lucky to be getting a new kitchen with wood floors in other rooms of my lovely home. As you learn in therapy, though, you feel what you feel.

Why was I – and why am I now, as I embark on Week 3 – such a horrific mess? Some of the reasons are obvious: My house is torn to pieces, with the kitchen completely empty, the living and dining rooms unusable and the family room furniture squished to one end. Crews of large men stomp into my house five days a week and treat it harshly – tearing out sinks, removing tiles with roaring vibrating machines, blowing drywall dust into the air.

It’s the missing kitchen that’s getting to me. I don’t cook every day, and I often prepare simple meals when I do turn on the stove or oven. I enter the kitchen several times over the course of my waking hours, though. I put ultra-filtered sink water into a teapot, place it on the stove, reach up for a mug, step left for a teabag, and five minutes later have a piping hot cup of English Breakfast. I grab a slice of hearty whole grain bread self-baked in my bread machine, add on a slice or two of Muenster, stick it in the toaster oven and have a decent breakfast. I pluck an apple from the three-tiered produce holder that has long stood conveniently in the center of my island, or maybe a banana from the banana tree that has for 14 years held a few bright yellow Chiquitas at the far right end of the counter.

Now my home has no heart. To make my morning tea, I have to dig out one of the two mugs that are not packed away; they’re usually on the sink of the guest bathroom, where I rinsed them out. I fill one with bathroom water, dig out a teabag from my stuffed office-turned-pantry, then kneel on the floor of the day, depending on where the day’s construction allows my microwave oven to reside, to heat the brew to lukewarm with the press of a button labeled “beverage.” I won’t bother you with the unappetizing details of solid food.

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home. Back in the days when I wrote parenting articles, a therapist told me that all children should have access to a toy kitchen at home. Since that room is such a central part of their world, toy versions are often where they work out their emotional issues.

Maybe a fake kitchen would do it for me at this point. I could pull up a bridge chair and read the morning newspaper while I drink my unsatisfying tea and try to swallow some pieced-together semblance of a meal.

My ordeal will end in another two weeks, but the lesson learned will stick with me. The kitchen is, to me, an essential part of my everyday world, more than I could have imagined. Take my patio, haul away my car, burn my – I was going to say my bedroom, but that’s taking the idea too far. But never again do I want to go a month without all my food and cooking and serving gear in one intimate room. Apparently that simple arrangement – refrigerator, stove, oven, counters, pantry, plates, utensils – is the foundation of what I consider home. That, my husband, and my kids.

Maybe I’ll set up a cot in there when the work is done. I may not want to leave for awhile.

Rona

www.RonaGindin.com

Paint Me Blue x 2

2011-01-05T20:18:00Z

OK, clearly I'm so hot at inserting photos into blogs, either. Will have the teenagers take a look and fix it later.

Paint Me Blue

2011-01-05T19:54:00Z

You see this?

That's us trying to choose a wall color for the common rooms of our house.

My friends do this kind of thing all the time. They delight in the challenge, and speak confidently about how happy they are with their new hue.

Me? Terrified. Petrified. I get embarrassingly anxious every time I have to stand in front of that wall again, or flip through the Benjamin Moore color wheel, or drive over to the BM store to pick up yet another mini sample. You'd think I was being tortured in a POW camp or forced to be patient with a roomful of kindergartners for more than eight hours.

I did feel good about the deep clay red I'd chosen to paint in the breakfast nook of my otherwise light and bright kitchen. The handyman overseeing my kitchen, however, strongly insists I keep it all light. I finally made one solid decision, and see what happens?

Some say I'm "missing the gene." Amen to that. I'd almost rather live in a decrepit home.

Rona

ronagindin.com

Two Weeks of 'Me Time' -- Ideas, Please

2010-12-06T17:03:00Z

Chime in, readers.

A friend of mine has been handed a gift, yet she's not sure what to do with it. We want your input.

"Patty" is a happily married 46-year-old mother of two teenagers. She has had successful career experiences and happily spent time at home with her kids. This summer, her husband has offered her a two-week reprieve from her workaday life. She can go wherever she wants and do what she chooses, alone or with others. Money isn't an object, although she's not necessarily seeking luxury. Relaxation might be nice, but it's not the goal.

During conversations with Patty, I hear words like "reinvention" and "self-discovery." In short, she's seeking an abbreviated personal version of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert's lengthy journey that followed a painful divorce.

Put yourself in Patty's shoes. You have two weeks to delve into life a whole new way, to see a place you haven't, to experiment with new thoughts, to acquire knowledge you don't know is out there, to tap talents of which you're unaware.

We welcome suggestions. (Don't bother with "Oh, poor thing" comments; I'll delete them. I'd love to hear personal stories, though, both successes and failures.)

Speak up,
Rona

www.RonaGindin.com

One Daughter’s Death Wish: Fake It

2010-10-21T14:04:00Z

I think I’ll start slapping people. Beginning with Carla.

“Are you feeling better about your father yet?” Carla roared cheerfully as I walked into a gathering of friends. Clearly, from the nearly mocking tone, she was not willing to hear one word about gloom.

“Well, no,” I snapped. “He’s only been dead two weeks, Carla. Give me some time.”

I’m no needy friend. My closest confidants probably wish I’d open up more, if anything, and let them in. But my goodness can we show a little respect for the grieving process, or at least fake it?

Carla may have been the bluntest about how I should breeze through this life change, but she was not alone. Most of my less intimate acquaintances made it obvious that I should be, or at least act, untouched. Most followed up their, “I‘m sorry about your father” sympathies rapidly with a dismissive “but it’s all part of life” or “but he lived a good long life” or “you’re lucky you had him for so long.”

Their statements are true, and I’ve expressed them myself with sincerity. But probably two dozen people said such things not to be comforting, but to cancel the conversation before I got sappy or even sentimental. I think they should pretend they care and trust that I’ll be well-mannered enough to change the subject quickly with those same encouraging thoughts. Good manners, in this case, means being a phony.

At first I was okay with folks erasing the chance for a meaningful sentence before I got to say it, since I tend to act stoic anyway. But after so many shunts I’m mad. I understand that many friends lost their fathers long ago; that I’ve lived an independent life for decades so am not affected the way I would have been at 15 or 25; and that Dad was healthy for 78 of his 79 years and did, indeed, have all the elements to deem his life a success: a fruitful career, a long and caring marriage, three devoted children and four loving grandchildren.

So I should be glad it was good and shut up if I feel sad?
Don’t get close. My palm is perched for the next cheek attached to a mouth that doesn’t know how to pretend to be concerned.

www.ronagindin.com

Kitchen Confidential

2010-09-17T16:28:00Z

So now cabinets are out of style.

Cabinets! How can cabinets be out of style?

As I approach 50, I occasionally feel overwhelmed by today’s whirlwind of technology, as if I’m too firmly planted in 1980, or maybe 2005, to keep mastering new digital transformations, be it the latest version of Microsoft Office or what the #sign means before a username on Twitter.

Kitchen cabinets though? Like beds and toilets and forks, I just sort of took their existence for granted.

Then I consulted a maven named Zelko about redesigning my formerly beautiful kitchen, which at 18 has yellowed cockeyed doors, broken drawers and shelves that tumble whenever I stack too much on them. Using a sophisticated computer system and 20 years experience, Zelko designed an updated Gindin kitchen, one that will increase my storage space by 40 percent --and not look decrepit.

I just can’t figure out where to put the stockpot, the towering pile of frying pans, the way-too-big roasting pans or my two beloved Le Creuset French ovens. What about the food processor? The blender? The standing mixer? “No one uses cabinets anymore,” Zelko tells me. “They use drawers.”

Well bah humbug to that. I’m no country granny in a gingham dress, but I can’t grasp this concept. What about the cabinet filled with baking and serving dishes? It’s piled high with glass and ceramic platters, bowls and Pyrex bakeware of all sizes and shapes. Every time I open it up, a nut bowl comes tumbling out, I admit. Whenever I need, say, a cake plate, I have to unload half a dozen fragile pie pans and such to extract it. Isn’t chaos inherent to kitchen chores?

Maybe Zelko has a point. Still, I am not happy about the change.

Nor am I pleased that I’m under pressure to swap out my white refrigerator, stove, dishwasher and oven for stainless steel ones. Not from Zelko; he makes no money from new appliances and therefore hasn’t dismissed my ideas of keeping the snow-colored matching set. Yet he did enlighten me as to what other American consumers buy: stainless steel, even though everyone I know who has the shiny silver finish says it always look smudged. I’d be in the minority; I believe 10 percent of new-kitchen owners choose white. Why is white bad?

At least beds and toilets and forks won’t change. Oh, there are those ever-popular futons – although I’ve managed to avoid the Japanese-influenced storable mattresses for 25 years. I’m mighty comfy on my old-fogey box spring/mattress set, thank you. Unless I don’t know it and futons have been replaced by a different type of miracle mattress. Oh heavens, what am I supposed to sleep on? Can I ask #somebody on Twitter? Can I store it in a cabinet?

www.RonaGindin.com

Helpful or Hovering? Draw Your Own Line

2010-08-26T15:05:00Z

Now that school has started, I'm faced with similar decisions every day: Do I lobby to get Josh the teacher he wants for AP Environmental or step back? Do I rummage through Ryan's backpack for papers I need to sign or let him get a zero if he doesn't follow through? And the big one this week: Do I follow up with the mother who threatened to go to the dean if Ryan calls her kid a mean name again (which he denies) and try to keep her calm, or do I let the school's anti-bullying system take its course?

Deciding when to step in and when to keep away is a daily dilemma for today's conscientious parents. This is newish stuff. Our mothers didn't follow our progress in their wombs through books like What to Expect When You're Expecting. ("Now he has a pinky!") They didn't suffer over decisions like when it's okay to slap us or when to turn off the TV (never was fine) or whether to feed us fruit juice-sweetened cereal instead of Cheerios or if we should be driven to school because the middle school bus is too scary. They cooked, they cleaned, they asked,"Did you do your homework?" and they went about their lives -- and left us to ours.

I've been thinking even harder about these decisions since receiving comments about my last blog entry. My friend Jeri jumped on parents for living their kids' lives for them, while my cousin Rona (yes, same name) staunchly defended mothers being very involved in her kids' business. A key topic was"helicopter" parenting, a term that refers to mothers and fathers hovering even when their young adult offspring leave for college. These parents might go so far as to call the school if the child is having roommate issues. A recent New York Times article article used the term "Velcro parents." The point: Colleges have separate orientation events for parents for the sole purpose of ripping them away from their inbound freshmen. But talking every day? Texting every hour? We called home once a week during my college years, when phone rates were high, so I assume it's best to forgo communication for a few days at a time when my boys are away. Is that true? Just because that's how I grew up, when there was no alternative?

I've always pondered, too seriously for it to be healthy, when to step in and when not to. But to have such strong reactions to the H word! Jeri's reasoning is 100 percent sound. Let 'em flop and learn, baby. But Rona's kids seem amazing -- well-adjusted and close with their parents yet fully independent. So who's wrong?

Wimpy as it sounds, I think the answer's in the middle. Will kids become more independent if we leave them the heck alone? Surely. Will they feel loved and gain self esteem if we butt in when they need support? Yup. All the area in between is gray, and individual. Every mother I know gets involved to a different degree, and every mother I know pooh-pooh's other mothers' decisions. "I would never let my child jump in the mud." "I would never stop my child from jumping in the mud." "If Johnny is failing English, let him fail. He has to make his own way." "I heard the 10th grade English teacher is bad so I'm pulling Johnny out every afternoon so he can take the class at the community college."

I make my own decisions every day, never too extreme, as far as I can tell. It's tough: If I don't nag Ryan to study for his tests he might not, and then he might get into crappy high school classes and become friends with kids who aren't college bound and ... . Then again, no one said a word when I let my middle school work go. Oh, there were Fs! Big fat red ones! Then in ninth grade I started caring on my own and worked hard forever after. Shouldn't Ryan have the chance to do his own caring? But considering he's in Florida public schools, is backing off worth the risk?

I'll bet you folks have opinions and lots of them -- not about my sweet Ryan, I'll handle that one thank you, but about helping versus hovering in general. Bring it on!

www.RonaGindin.com

Can I Stop Yet?

2010-07-27T20:11:00Z

If Josh gets into an ace university, it's only because A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian didn't catch my interest. I'd avoided reading a friend's borrowed Admission Matters for two months, passing over the intimating tome for novels, memoirs and the occasional People magazine. It sat on my coffee table week after week, brushed aside by not only me but also my upper education-bound son and his impressively educated father. Me? Why should I read it? I did my job as a parent, I reasoned. I'm done. Josh is a good kid with a good future. If he wants to get into the Ivy League, let him figure out the finer details.

Oh, the nasty looks I've gotten for saying that! Oh, the curt little lectures I've heard! "You've got to read the books!" parents of former teens admonished. "Take him on the road! Force him to see the campuses!" And, unspoken, "Gather the paperwork! Fill it out! Run it by an expert! Buy the recruiters diamonds! Sleep with them if you have to!"

Apparently getting into college is no longer just the high school senior's job. Now the effort is a family affair.

Granted, the whole process is tougher than it was when we were kids. Competition is stiffer for the best schools, and seemingly every other A student in America has been privately tutored since two years before they took the PSAT and now have new tutors to see them through the application process. Josh has earned his way up the academic ladder on his own -- by studying -- and I'll support him in any way he wants. But only the obvious stuff. Want me to drive you to community college so you have a solid shot at valedictorian? Want me to pay for an online SAT course? Heck, I'll even cook you a nice breakfast the morning of the exam and I'll sharpen your pencils. But until my stack of to-reads ran short, I refused to do more.

Here's how I see it: I put in the efforts up front. I refrained from drinking while I pregnant. Wine and coffee -- both taboo. I breast fed for 10 months even though I suffered excruciating pain for more weeks than I care to recall. I stocked the house with kiddie books and read them all he wanted -- and he sometimes wanted 40 in one sitting. "You can watch TV the rest of your life," I reasoned. "Be there for him now."Jigsaw puzzles, Candy Land, Trouble ... I may have taught him games too well, because I can't even once keep up in Scrabble Scoring Anagrams. I sat through years of school meetings and basketball games. We baked and we swam and we talked.

And then he was gone, pretty much. Josh is responsible, he gets good grades, he volunteers, he holds a job. I'm done, right? Now it's time to enjoy each other's company, occasionally wrestle over the remote control, and hope for happy Sunday dinners when he can pull himself away from his friends.

So why does everyone think I'm the one who has to get this kid into college? If he can pull off grades better than I ever had in classes harder than any I ever took, shouldn't he be reading Admission Matters? Apparently even the authors don't think so. While they pretend to write for kids, they frequently address parents directly, such as when they suggest that we old-timers leave certain documents out where our teens might happen to come across them.

I succumbed out of boredom and now find myself intrigued. The book has excellent insider tips. I'm making mental notes of what to tell Josh and plotting when to ante up the information so he'll be most likely to absorb it. I even Xeroxed three pages last night -- twice, one set for him, another for his best friend.

I guess I'm not done after all. If you catch me ordering his textbooks in Fall 2011, hurl the "helicopter" word at me and admonish me to spend all my excess parenting energy on my other son. I still have an excuse -- and the desire -- to run his life! Although I am so very tired.

www.RonaGindin.com

Here's the Dish: Wash Your Own

2010-07-07T18:31:00Z

Putting away bulky All-Clad pans following a recent dinner party, my fingers came across a layer of goo. Not goo, really. Grime. Grease. Whatever the word, my shiny stainless steel über-cookware felt unclean. I suddenly felt a surge of dread. "I washed serving dishes at Norine's barbecue yesterday," I remembered, sickened. "Now she'll know."

Ten bucks says she's in on my hidden horror by now. I'm sure Norine discovered the truth the following morning when she went to place her colorful ceramic platters in a cabinet. No question about it, the hostess picked up her kitchenware and found it oddly unwashed, even though she saw me working diligently at the sink.

I have a dirty little secret: I can't wash dishes.

I do technically wash dishes. I turn the water on steamy hot. I squirt liquid soap onto a sponge. I lather and rinse and flip pieces over and lather and rinse some more, and I keep at it until I am 100 percent certain that the pot, ladle or cake plate in question is indisputably sanitary.The problem is, once the squeaky-clean item in question has sat on a counter for a day and I return to it, I realize I did a lousy job.

Norine won't be the first friend to discover the cause of my domestic shame. I am quick to take up sink duty at any gathering. That way I am clearly helping out; if someone else gets to that position first, I have to conjure up ways to assist, to find forks in need of carrying, to seek out trash cans that need emptying. I'd rather not scurry around pathetically looking to look helpful.

But, when it comes to dishwashing, I am a loser. I'm sure my friend Nancy knows it. She once served my husband and me a wonderful dinner -- on fine china yet. Sincerely glad for her hospitality (we slept in her guest room that night, too), I bolted into the kitchen and had my way with what were surely her wedding treasures. Hot water, soap, lather, scrub, rinse, repeat. I have no doubt that all five sets of plates were rewashed, by hand or dishwasher, the moment we left. Nine years later, I can still imagine Nancy standing in her kitchen and telling her husband, "I'm sure Rona washed these dishes but they're ooey," and then taking her thoughts to the logical next step: "I wonder if she does everything half-assed."

Thank goodness for my KitchenAid dishwasher, which handles most of the burden for me. If only my shiny white miracle machine could handle my entire load and those of my friends, I'd be set. But when I cranked out a soup/three entrees/vegetable/dessert meal for six on Saturday night, when Norine hosted 15 of us with a glorious spread for a July 4 celebration, when Nancy cooked and served a splendid salmon repast for five, dishwashers couldn't handle the load. Some items, generally the biggest ones, simply need a good swish in the sink. Unless I'm the one doing the swooshing.

Back at my house, once I recovered from my panic at Norine learning my homemaking weakness, I touched the pans and, again, felt the familiar sense of ugh. Then I unceremoniously stuck them on top of my other pans in the cupboard. No one but me will know, since I'm the only cook here, and after another use or two I'll run them through the KitchenAid.

If my guests ever find out, they might never join us here for another meal -- even if I do promise my signature swordfish empanada or rosemary chicken. Ssh. Don't tell.

www.ronagindin.com

Thanks for the Thanks

2010-06-14T17:27:00Z

This girl got it right.

My beloved R, who is no angel, was allegedly part of a group that acted disrespectfully during a classmate's bat mitzvah. I'm told the girl knows little of the gang's what-were-they-thinking behavior but her mother's in the loop--and understandably disgusted. What do you put in a thank you note if the standard "I'm glad you could celebrate with me" is a lie?

How about this: "Thank you for the money. It will go towards my future." Honest, and sort of adorable.

Good for her and her mother for taking the high road and sending a thank you note.

www.RonaGindin.com

Thanks for Nothing

2010-06-09T13:45:00Z

Ha! I just found myself on the other side of the "thank you" issue -- twice. End of story: I will not make any fuss.

First, in front of three friends, my son J asked me if I'd pay for him to order the gang dinner from Papa Johns. Sort of put out that I feed these (very nice) kids regularly since they always hang out at my house, I said, "Um, er, well ... sure, if you chip in." J jokingly offered up a dollar. His friends sat there mute. Kept their eyes down. Looked at their poker chips. Not one said, "Here's five bucks."

Either they don't have the money to spare, which is possible since they're un- or underemployed high school boys, or they didn't get my hint -- which was aimed at them. I agreed to the pizzas since I was running out and couldn't put up a pot of spaghetti (plus I'm a sucker for making these guys happy; I adore them all), but I do wish someone other than just J would have thanked me for the $40-plus indulgence. To be fair, all the boys regularly thank me for hosting them and for other meals. I suspect they kept mute in this situation because I sort of asked for cash. And, I left the house right after the conversation; they may have expressed gratitude when the pies arrived or as they finished chowing down.

I learned a lesson here: If I wanted them to chip in, I should have been straightforward.

Then, I remembered that I never received a thank you note from someone. I gave a 13-year-old girl a small but thoughtful bat mitzvah present in March and never heard a word back.

The story's a bit more complex than you'd think. Her mother and I used to be friends but now are not. The girl shared her celebration with the son of a dear friend of mine, so my family was invited to the bash by the boy's family, not hers. I gave him a generous gift and bought her a necklace as a token of good will.

It is customary for b'nai mitzvah kids to churn out thank you notes in the weeks after their big days. I'm certain the girl sent appropriate correspondence to those who wrote her hefty checks. I think she should have kept her pen out and kept to her task until she showed gratitude for every item she received. To be clear, I do not blame the girl but her mother. Can you imagine a teenager who would willingly take on an effort like that without parental insistence?

I was obligated to give the delightful young woman nothing yet went out of my way -- a 45-minute drive! -- to find a pretty item with religious significance. Her mother tends to return gifts (Don't ask me about the preschool years. Oy, do I have stories to tell!), so maybe the mom brought this one back to Scott Laurent Gallery and found the price didn't justify a written recognition. It wouldn't be the first time: After our friendship had waned, I once gave the mother an inexpensive but pretty gift for a birthday get-together and never found an envelope with her return address in my mailbox. I'm sure she saw the Owen Allen wrapping paper, cashed in the cute little compact make-up mirror (it was only $3, but it was adorable and she wouldn't have known the price if she'd just kept it, plus we had barely any relationship at that point), and deemed the token purchase unworthy of any effort at a thanks. Can you imagine?

Thanks for nothing.

www.ronagindin.com

P.S. I know J shouldn't have asked for the pizza in front of his friends. He doesn't usually do things like that so I'm letting it ride.