An Interesting Development

ADDENDA:
Woke up at 7 feeling crappy. Was going to ride bike today, but after being up for an hour, thought it best to stay in doors and be quiet and still. Tomorrow, the grind starts again. A nap around 12-1:30 on the couch made me feel a whole mess better.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, bowl of organic cornflakes with good milk, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11am, 4 chocolate vegan macaroon-like sweet things, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, homemade squash soup, homemade chocolate soy ice cream, hunger 4/5
I woke up from my nap to an interesting, somewhat delicious smell. Something unexpected and totally invited happened: Betsy cooked something!! And it was GOOD! She made a fresh squash soup with a recipe from her momma's. Up to this point, for the 2+ years I've been with her, she's made....let's see, our first date at her home in Brooklyn, she made salad and a stilted pizza-like item by putting cheese and veg on a Mediterranean flat bred. She's prepared salad again over the years, presented fruit and cheese, prepared, reheated, encouraged ME to cook, but hasn't actually cooked a thing.

In the fall out of my mother's generation of progressive feminism, we left cooking in the hands of industry, and they have not treated us like a parent who loves a child by nourishing them - they've treated us a like a mark to be lightened of the cash in their wallets. Betsy took a small but crucial step in righting some wrongs and guaranteeing the good health of our future children - imagine, BOTH parents liking to cook real food!

My mother was a horrible cook, who treated it like an annoying obligation meant to tie her to a history of servitude, my father didn't have enough time to enjoy it more creatively, letting that creative muscle atrophy over the years until in the end he ended up just making monster batches of hummus twice a year, a monster batch of spaghetti sauce once a year. I don't blame them, they were products of their time, as I hope to be of mine.

As a response to her call, I immediately made some chocolate soy ice cream in return, only takes about 10 minutes. However, this is the third time I made it and the 2nd time it didn't turn out as good as the first. Though it'll add a few hours to prep time, I think I'm going to cook the mix then chill it, I think that'll eliminate the slightly powdery consistency that's created when the hot melted chocolate hits the cool soy blend.

DINNER: 6pm, homemade pizza, hunger 4/5
Talked about going out for dinner, but neither of us felt like leaving the house, and ordering in didn't really appeal either, so I busted out the freezer for dough and sauce, sliced up some veg and sauteed in white wine. No mozz, just some freshly grated parm. One pizza I used the pan method and came out the roundest and thinnest of all the pizzas I've done, the other the dough didn't cooperate so I made myself a very doughy, calzone, probably the crappiest pizza thing I've made.

Upon reading the lunch entry, Betsy said, "Add that I'm a feminist!" Like actually cooking is somehow a repudiation or questioning of her feminist credentials. There in lies a problem. Has anyone written a book about resolving the socio-economic-environmental problems created by cooking becoming first gender-specific, then abandoned?

I just watched 'The Nanny Diaries' on cable, a crappy movie based on a crappy novel. The uptight Upper East Side mom insists that her son eat only organic and soy, the nanny bonds with the kid by feeding him corn-syrup laden peanut butter pre-mixed with jam straight out of the jar. At the end of the movie, where it's tied up all nicey-nicey, the formerly uptight mom eats the jar mess with her kid and admits it's good. Urgh, anality in any form is unpleasant, but dismissing eating well and non-industrially as somehow elitist, untastey and ultimately alienating is such a shitty message. But I guess the masses that eat up that Hollywood crap like to have their world-views confirmed! Rage rage rage! :)