4 Blessings on a Weds. - Julia Child

Life is good, and here are a few reasons why:

1) Julia Child

I do not own a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I love Julia. Today she would have been 100.  And, truly, the only reason that I do not own her famed cookbook is because French cooking is too far above me, and I haven't the time currently to climb the cuisine heights to master it. I'm still biding my time at base camp, waving cheerfully at those on their way up, and relying on grilled meat, steamed veggies and canned beans for my family's sustenance.

Today on a radio program they were asking home cooks to call in with their cooking disasters in honor of Julia's birthday. Well, I've done it all - started a fire in the microwave, dumped a whole tray of chocolate chip cookies on the oven door, forgotten to add sugar, leavener, or half the butter, made snackle when I meant to make frosting, and served raw cinnamon rolls to my unsuspecting in-laws.

But, like many home cooks, natural or unnatural, I carry the light of Julia Child in my heart.

2) My husband would throw me across the Swiss border...

(movie spoiler alert!)

At the end of the movie Shining Through , Ed Leland (Michael Douglas) carries an unconscious Linda Voss (Melanie Griffith) over the Swiss Border while Nazis shoot at them. I recently watched the movie with my husband on Netflix, and I found it as romantic as the first time I saw it - just a young girl dreaming of a man who would do the same for me. Well, now I have that man, or I thought I did. I asked him the next day whether he would carry me across the Swiss border under enemy fire, and he replied, "No, I'd throw you across. Then you wouldn't slow me down, and we could both get across quicker."

It may not be as romantic, but it made me laugh uproariously. Eat your heart out, Michael Douglas!

3) City Parks

In a metropolis like ours, city parks prove as diverse as America itself. We have one in a rougher part of town with a beautiful meditation garden. There's one near South Mountain that has so little shade it ain't funny, but it also has some of the neatest, most life-threatening playground equipment that reminds me of my childhood. There are many with splash pads, ponds and kiddie trains. And there's one close to home with a wide open field, tall trees and great shade that makes you feel as if you're in a world without smog.

4) We ate, we played, and I lost all our spending money...

My husband and I had our first date night in months, and for a change we went to a casino. When I told my mom we were going for the buffet with crab legs, she told me that I would stay for the slots. I didn't believe her since I had never really understood the attraction.

For the date I wore new and quite uncomfortable heels and a sexy little red dress that probably had a "not for mothers with four kids" warning label on it. I wore it, anyway, and despite the fact that it fought to be a whole two inches shorter than I let it.

While we ate we watched a huge dust storm blow in, a typical enchanted summer's evening in our part of the world. The buffet was okay, but the slots were a blast. My husband played only a little, because in his words, "I have more fun watching you, because you're so cute." Of course I should have stopped when I was a couple bucks ahead, but I was fired up for the big pay off and spent us down to our last eight cents.  We left early to pick up our kids, but the quiet car ride was even romantic. We were satisfied.


P.S. I'm thankful for all your comments lately.

Of butter, and Julia, and romantic pauses

I had two chocolate scones last night, spaced decently to aid digestion, and two cups of skim milk - one cold and one not which always turns me off. I won't drink milk if it's not chilled and accompanied by at least a humble cookie, and to drink milk with anything savory would send me into convulsions of disgust, I suspect.

But I had to have the two scones, because I was watching Julie and Julia, and butter is mentioned an ungodly amount of times in that tale. It's a movie that makes even a reluctant cook like myself think of possibly, remotely in the future, maybe, eventually delving deeper into the culinary arts just to eat the delicious meals in Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Plus, my dad has so exalted French food since his vacation to France with my mother that I am sorely tempted to feel that I have not truly experienced life if I do not find a way (and soon!) to have French food on a semi-regular basis.

But honestly, I don't have a yearning to master the art of any cooking, and French cooking makes me think of being chased by an angry mob through Paris' streets in my underwear; I imagine the result of my efforts would make me feel similarly desperate, outmaneuvered and exposed. Just watching shows about competitive cooking, like Gordon Ramsey's Master Chef tv series, sends me into spasms of chills and makes me involuntarily curl up my limbs in awkward tension. If by some cruel conspiracy of the universe, I ended up on such a show, I would army crawl out the double doors silently while everyone else was viciously whipping their egg whites into clouds, terrified that the cold, skinny Italian guy might spot my escape and throw a supercilious dart of parting pure disgust my way.

But back to the movie. I needed a good movie last night. My poise, patience, selflessness, and compassion were tapped out by evening time. That's not such a problem if one can be alone at the end of a long day, but if you have four children to put to bed it is a serious deficiency. I turned into "a grumpy bear" according to my eldest girl. I was not the gentle lullaby-singing, child-cradling, laughing, long-hugging mother that I do truly try to be as much as possible. My frustration had climaxed, and it had rushed forth to its denouement which left me, after my children were finally in bed, feeling guilty about my lack of motherly softness. So I cried it out to my husband on his birthday when he came home from having drinks and dinner with friends, and I apologized for not wanting to make love on his special day, but added wolfishly, "Well, would you want me like this?"

And by that I meant sniffling, puffy-eyed, looking like a pacing animal in my stress-induced wildness.

"No! Not like that," said Matthew with a shake of his head and a chuckle, but with disappointment hanging behind the words.

So we turned on the movie, and I began to relax. We sat together in the recliner. That is quite a feat, because my hips are so voluptuous that I have to fold up the lower part of my body at a strange angle just to accommodate anyone else. But we fit, and once the movie had begun, it was so lighthearted and sweet, especially the parts concentrating on Julia Child's life, that the tension seeped out of me. Matthew held my hand, something I don't get often in public since he has a blanket policy about even little PDAs (except for the surreptitious bottom pat when he feels he can get away with it). I began to play with Matthew's thick, dark hair that I love so much which he took as an invitation to caress back, of course.

There's a scene in the movie when Julia is writing a letter to her sister or a pen pal, and in the missive she describes her husband coming home for lunch and how she cooks for him. Then next you see him pull her to the bed in a playful embrace, and Julia is writing "and then Paul takes a nap..."

"That's about right," I said to Matthew with a smile. He agreed with an answering, mischievous grin.

Men will zonk out right after lovemaking, and women will be awake, all keyed up and energetic regardless of how tired they may have been beforehand, and it is my solemn belief that if we made love as often as men want us to we could literally rule the world, because we would be so unflagging in our productivity.

The unexpected, somewhat disjointed chemistry on screen between Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Stanley Tucci as her husband made me giggle and made Matthew bolder in his advances to me, and he soon found he had warmed me up sufficiently to receive the birthday gift he wanted.

He kindly offered to rewind my movie after our romantic interlude, and then he stretched himself out full on the couch and, as was only expected, fell asleep. I meanwhile had replenished my energy stores enough to get through the second half of the movie, had my second scone and now too warm milk, and thoroughly enjoyed my alone time while the sleeping presence of my husband a few feet away sent off friendly, warm, comforting vibes.


Julie and Julia