My dad had a thick butcher block cutting board. It never looked great -- he used it a lot, it always looked a bit beat up, and my mom complained about it a lot. My dad never got rid of it, it was too expensive to replace.
In their senior years, my parents loved going up to the crafts fair at Lincoln Center once a year. I went with them a few times, but the stuff there never really did anything for me. In the early part of this decade, one evening a few days after this crafts fair, my parents told me they got something expensive....something expensive for ME....something expensive that will be my wedding present....and this is years before I even met my wife.
When B moved in, she put my father's dank cutting board under the sink and replaced it with her own, a rather thin board, but wider and fresher. Recently, due to sitting in a small pool of water, the board finally split in half. B has been on my case for a while now to get a new board. When hers bit the dust, out came my dad's old warhorse.
Yesterday, after trudging to the Church St post office to get Edie's application in for a passport, we worked our way up to Sur La Table and found a good hardwood butcher block -- $68, but I got 10% discount with my culinary-school ID, which would have made my father very, very happy. It's pretty much a new version of my dad's old board.
B wanted to bury dad's board in the small plot we have in the community garden, but I want it to go back under the sink to pop up in times of need. My dad's wife couldn't rid us of this board, my wife will not rid us of this board, and hopefully Edie's college apartment will be graced by this board.
After mom and dad passed away, it was up to me to clean out their apartment, a rather frighteningly charged task. In the back of one of the hallway closets, on a high shelf, wrapped in four or five plastic grocery bags, was something stashed away that I did not recognize. Everything else in the house, from the furniture to the books to the clothes to the nick-knacks to the kitchen supplies to the picture frames, everything had some point of reference to some point in the life I shared with my parents. Just looking at a box in the closet, I could tell you what was in it and when it was from. Old plastic utility box with green top, that's all string, cords and power lines from the basement on Staten Island. Cardboard box with torn top, that was dad's school papers.
This bag, however, didn't fit. My parents were not big on secrets, so I instantly knew that this had to be the wedding gift. I opened it up, and in it was a cutting board. It was made up of multi-colored bands of wood, and had rounded corners on one side, and rubber bumpers on the other. A variety of emotions ran through -- my god, what a horrible wedding gift! Relief, my parents would never know how I didn't like their gift. Sadness, my parents never got to see me get married and present it. Amusement, is this their way of trying to prevent me and my spouse from having the same aggro they had in their marriage? And damn, how expensive could a cutting board be?!
I think when it comes time for Edie to furnish her first apartment, I'm going to try to pawn off my dad's board on her, and B will put her foot down and give her the new, multi-colored board that I could never bring myself to use, it's just too precious to use myself.
BREAKFAST: 8:30am, good yogurt with agave and cashews, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
LUNCH: 12:30pm, mac n' cheese, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
PM SNACK: 5:45pm, large green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5Hungry right before going out -- it was this or cookies, and I didn't want to report cookies on this blog!
DINNER: 7pm, roasted mushrooms, sausage n' polenta, water, 1.5 cupcakes, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5B, E & I went out to visit the jewelery designer who did our wedding bands who just opened up a shop in our hood, then out to dinner at Frankies, where we held our rehearsal dinner for our wedding. Then around the corner to Sugar Sweet Sunshine for cupcakes! A few rough nights lately with not enough sleep, a nice date-like night out with a sleepy baby was just what the doctor ordered.
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