Food

I think sometimes people get the crazy idea that, since I love to cook, we eat 4-course, gourmet meals every night. And that they go on the table flawlessly and with the greatest of ease. Wrong!

Take the other night for instance. After enjoying a leisurely Fall day, that dreaded dinner hour was drawing near. Graham was home which happens ~1 night a week on average and decided to stray from the dinner I'd planned and make "simple" bacon cheeseburgers. Before we knew it, the menu had evolved and there were beets roasting in the oven, onions caramelizing on the stove, and two different preparations of parsnip and potato fries in process (one fried, one roasted - I'll let you guess who insisted on which one).

And Tupperware ALL over the kitchen floor. And one SCREAMING baby. And one incredibly whiny little girl. And a totally shattered Pyrex. And a very cranky mother who was more than annoyed that we'd chosen to make such a "simple" meal instead of what had been planned.

An hour and a half later (yes, it took that long), we sat down to half-roasted beets, crying, overtired children, and burgers that actually were quite tasty but were totally fell apart when touched. Almost every single pot and pan we own had played and role in the meal and there was not an inch of free counter space left. Dinner lasted a few short minutes before the troops began competing over who could chuck the most food onto the floor. And so went our lovely family dinner. It took me 45 minutes to clean up the aftermath.

It's life. It's real. And I will learn from it but I wouldn't change it. When Graham and I finally collapsed on the couch after the kids were in bed, we both looked at each other with smirks as we began to see the humor in what had just happened. I wondered aloud if anything else could have possibly gone wrong when it occurred to me: no one spilled their milk!

And so I'll chalk this meal up as a success.