So this is what's been going on.

A'ight.

I have learned (an no, not the hard way) that a PT SAHD really shouldn't comment on whatever housework he may be called upon to perform if there are moms within earshot. No matter how many loads of laundry I completed, there is always someone who did twice as many and managed to nurse triplets simultaneously.

On the subject of laundry, there is much stress in the household. I cannot abide starch or fabric softener. I hate them jointly and severally and find it the height of irony to use both on the same item. So I don't. Yesterday I started getting hints. "Did we run out of Brand X Fabric Softener?" cooed my beloved softly, to which I replied with a torrent of profanity, abuse and blasphemy that would have made Poppy AND Badger blush, jointly and severally.

Actually, I just mumbled to the effect of "I'll check, dear." with the implication that if, in fact, we hadn't, I'd jettison the whole consignment eftsoons or right speedily, whichever came first.

Yesterday I had a dinner meeting with some out of state clients and coincidentally, TFBIM's something-or-other got cancelled due to a surfeit of adenoids (or something) among those scheduled to attend. So, being the dutiful bastid I am, earlier in the evening I semi-cooked dinner and left everything over the lowest possible heat that, as soon as the offspring were bathed, they may all dine.

But the point of this vignette is actually to go off on a tear about cooking. Often people tell me that it's great that I cook for my family. In reality, I cook for me. I feed my family with the stuff I cook for me, but it's my own palate that is judge, jury and executioner. With the possible exception of NOS sometime after the year 2027, the rest of my immediate and semi-immediate circle only care that food "tastes good." It's a binary thing. It tastes good or it tastes bad. If it tastes good, there bloody well better be a cubic @$$load of it...but that's really as far as it goes.

But I am a foodie, and therefore I sit there and analyze things in mid-chew. If it's someone else's food which I am enjoying, I try to reverse-engineer it. If it's my own, I check for weak points or flaws and seek not to repeat them. (Feeling now like Father William) this has led to a rather sharpened palate, both a blessing and a curse. As a consequence, people like Sandra "Semi Homemade" Lee and the approach of doctoring up stuff from jars, cans, tins, boxes and the like are anathema to me. I like getting all that free-range, organic, Gaia-Earth-Mother, sustainable, fair trade, natural stuff even if I have to pay some tonsorially-challenged eco-terrorist in flannel thrice the going rate.

Not for philosophical reasons, because we have all firmly established what a Goldwaterite I am, but because that stuff tastes much, much better. A case might be made that stuff tasting better is as valid a philosophy as not putting weird-arse chemicals in one's system or being "green" or devoutly hoping the gutters along Wall Street run red with the blood of capitalist plutocrats. I'm not going to make such a case, but maybe someone will.

The problem with this compulsion is that when you see a recipe that calls for some component, say, chocolate wafer crumbs, your first impulse upon realizing all such chocolate wafers generally available to you are unacceptable (being either filled with weird-arse chemicals, not "green," or are helping to keep the blood of Wall Street capitalist plutocrats safely within their circulatory system), is to find a recipe for such wafers that you might have adequate crumbs.

This attitude is what led me from reading Cooking Light magazine. In the previous place where I worked out, there would be a shelf atop your locker where the staff would put notices, flyers, etc. and Cooking Light started showing up there, complimentarily. I took a few home, but after seeing too many recipes that started with canned this or boxed that, I stopped* taking it. Even free was too expensive.

There are people who will claim they purchase all their foodstuffs from the tonsorially-challenged eco-terrorist in flannel (at thrice the going rate) for the previously enumerated noble and good reasons. This is because among certain segments, admitting to being a foodie, even a potential foodie, is tantamount to either treason or declaring yourself in need of some 12-step program. The danger is palpable to them, especially if they are good cooks. Tell one of these excellent cooks the reason they buy Holistic Farms Boddhisvatta Pork is because it is ridiculously yummy and you might wind up with a candy thermometer in a very awkward place.

Anyway, my greater family may not be able to taste the difference between dried supermarket pasta and fresh homemade lasagna, but I can. That's the key thing. So I make sacrifices and abjure, openly and cheerfully, the overwhelming majority of convenience products. But what would you expect from someone who drives 90 miles each way** to get hot dogs?

There. That was my manifesto.

Also, I started packing TFBIM's St. Valentine's Day loot. If you promise not to spill the beans, I'll tell you what I got her.

OK?

Good.

1- An Aquascutum red wool/cashmere/angora trenchcoat-looking coat. (On sale!)
2- An Orrefors (Baccarat?) vase for the flowers she'll get on Feb. 15th after the floral extortion ends.
3- An "everyday" Tourneau watch.


Oh, and I got some killer shoes for me. On--duh--sale!

-J.

* I then subscribed to Eating Well, until I got fed up with the politics of the magazine. I hasten to add I would have gotten fed up with the politics of the magazine even if they had agreed with mine. Color me reactionary, but I failed to see how ranting about WalMart's dairy policy helps me make a better, healthier breakfast strata.

** Note to Julia: I do this sans offspring and over no ice-slicked roads.