I had a thought while I was cooking dinner tonight. The world needs a new cooking show. One that represents, not the woman we all want to be, but the woman we all actually ARE.
A woman who often begins her Sunday with a long to-do list full of plans for household chores, home improvements, and things that have to be done before work on Monday. A woman who has the best of intentions, but realizes by the time she has made her breakfast and sipped her coffee while watching CBS Sunday Morning that she has a limited window in which to run to Meijer/Big Lots/Kmart/Lowe’s before the good stuff comes on NPR for the afternoon. A woman who has a major crisis of interior design while shopping for new drapes for the bedroom and can’t commit to a tomato plant, but scores 600-thread-count sheets for $40. In short…a woman who is only about halfway through cleaning the kitchen when she HAS to start dinner if she wants to eat it before breakfast.
My cooking show would be shot with handheld cameras and begin by entering my front door, startling me as I kick the clean-but-as-yet-unfolded undies that currently reside on the floor out of the shot. Wobbly pan past the Dining-Room-Table-of-Unfinished-Projects and Curtains-Yet-to-be-Hemmed to watch my very careful chopping on my tiny chopping block (which is of such size because my kitchen has zero functional counter space) so as to avoid bits of vegetable escaping onto the yet-to-be-cleaned counter. My cooking show would involve me dropping things onto said counter or the floor, and audibly debating the 5-second rule to myself before erring on the side of caution with a sigh. I mix a martini.
I am a woman whose mire poix sometimes involves celeriac because she discovers her celery is furry. I bet that never happens to Martha. But it should.
As we go to commercial, I sit down and put my feet up, sipping a now highly-watered-down martini because I had just mixed everything when I realized my shanks were brown and I needed to de-glaze my pan. I am not wearing impeccably crisp and well-pressed white clothing. I am wearing a grease-stained t-shirt and the Jeans That Fit Right Now. I am considering folding that laundry. But…you know…Bravo is marathoning “Real Housewives of New Jersey.” My horror at any human being ordering “half Coke, half red wine, with a lot of ice” (Seriously, how did this become a Thing???) is captured on film for all eternity as we fade out. Please be sure to get my digital picture frame that displays every photo at a 90 degree angle NO MATTER HOW MUCH I SHAKE IT into the frame.
…
AND…we’re back. To find me…right where you left me, only 2 hours later. And maybe a whole lot drunker. What? I’m braising, bitch. We hear the unmistakable sound of breaking glass from the bedroom (I say unmistakable, because many years of teaching chemistry labs has trained me well in distinguishing between the sound of Falling Glass vs. Breaking Glass). Our heroine has finally gotten around to hanging pictures in her bedroom, only to find that apparently one has a faulty hanger on the back of the frame. She suffers only one mild puncture while CLEANING THE BROKEN GLASS OFF OF HER BED. Good thing she bought new sheets today! She emerges back into the living room. Laundry is still there, but looking even more rumpled (if that’s even possible).
I begin to prepare my celeriac for puree. Loosely following an Eric Ripert recipe. Ah, I’m out of lemons. Will make do. Prepare the celeriac and go back into the fridge for the…ah, shit…seriously, I KNOW it’s in here…it may not be GOOD, but it’s IN HERE…THERE it is…cream. Which is well past its date and has solidified on top (seriously, I bought this shit for Mardi Gras and it’s almost Easter). Solid cream layer tastes fine, but what about the liquid beneath? Pour some into my little tiny dish that is only ever used for testing Suspect Dairy Products, and…IT’S GOOOOOOOD! Shake that bad boy up and USE IT! Chop up my celeriac and…wait…IS THAT A LEMON THAT WAS HIDING UNDER THE CELERIAC???? SCORE.
Wow. Lemon juice does NOT feel good on that one mild puncture. Ow.
(Has anyone else noticed that the cattiness of any “Real Housewives” show increases exponentially with the percentage of interviews shot in soft focus? No? Just me? All right then.)
I pour a glass of my cooking wine while everything finishes. WOW, does that stuff suck. Seriously, wanting my $12 back.
Finally, everything is ready. The celeriac puree has been truffled, the salad made, the shanks braised to delicious tenderness. I pour a glass of the marked-down-on-clearance wine and find it to be much better than the on-serious-sale wine for the same $12 that I opened a couple of days ago and thus used as cooking wine.
I may have a chaotic apartment, but I have one hell of a delicious dinner.
Fade out as I carry my new sheets across the parking lot to wash them so I can get through the night without shedding blood.
My cooking…nay, LIFESTYLE show will not air on the Food Network, nor on PBS. This shit SCREAMS Bravo. Seriously, Andy Cohen. This…THIS is a real housewife. Call me.
