Girls start cooking again and Nastia' reads

When Teri’s job moved to Georgia last spring and she didn’t, she started cooking dinner every night. After about six or so months of it, I could tell she was getting tired of it. I’d hear things like, I didn’t take anything out, I haven’t started cooking, thought about what to have for dinner, and I’m tired of cooking. I eventually took the hint. The funny thing is I like to cook. There is something in me that likes to create something delicious most of the time from a diverse group of odds and ends. If Teri didn’t have to eat, I’m sure she would never cook.

I told both girls I wanted them to start cooking again. Nastia, who is trying to grow up, took to it immediately, finding a recipe on Tick Tock. It is related to a recipe that uses several cans of soup in a pan with rice and chicken. Her’s had only chicken soup with cheese in addition to the chicken. I walked in last Tuesday from work as she put the pan in the oven. Teri helped little in preparation and I took the dish out of the oven. It looked cooked and really good. I checked one chicken breast to see if it was cooked and it looked cooked. It was juicy and I served myself. About half way through the breast it became obvious it wasn’t completely cooked.

One of the cardinal sins you can commit is to serve Teri undercooked food, especially if it is chicken. She’s gotten better over the years. At one point when I would serve her chicken she considered not cooked ( her version of cooked chicken is really not a juicy chicken) there would be a clatter of silverware onto the table, indignation would fill the air and she would head for the microwave. You know the place where tasty food goes to die. She is better now. It is quieter, but the room still fills with indignation and you can tell she is not happy with her meal. Before the meal is over all of us would head to the microwave killing a tasty meal. Elena gave attitude and acted like a bitch, mouthed off giving the impression she would rather starve to death than cook, She even complained the day she decided to cook Chicken Piccata. She mouthed off to her mother who helped her cook dinner. Elena Muller, what an actress! She cooked Thursday evening. Why she chose Chicken Piccata, I don’t know. It’s not a complex dish, but it has several steps and if you really don’t want to cook, you can find something easier to cook. She used a recipe off the internet and it came out very well. My only complaint is there was not enough gravy. I like to cover the rice in gravy along with the meat. Teri’s the same way and between us tha gravy didn’t go far. THe girls don’t like gravy, so there’s more for us, just not enough. I went back for seconds, it was so good. The gravy was a cream sauce, where I use a recipe that doesn’t add cream.

Sean received some smoked kielbasa and he has talked about cooking it up for a meal. I got no problem with that. Cooking is something I grew up with. I remember one Christmas, my mother gave me Dunkin Hines cake mixes for Christmas. I didn’t know at the time that I liked cooking. I guess she did. It’s grown from there. I hope a love of cooking will grow with the three of them and they will relate to their kids, or Elena will tell kids passing by on the street (because she insists she won’t have kids, see pictures of her holding KJ all the time. She just won’t be able to deal with diapers and vomit.) how they discovered the joy of cooking. I bribe the girls, if not a lot, often. I buy Elena Mountain Dew with the understanding she would not drink energy drinks. I know it’s potato, po-tat-to, the lesser of two evils. I also bought Elena a game console if she didn’t get a motorcycle until she was 26 or 27. I don’t remember the exact age she promised, but I’ll hold out for 27. Teri paid her money to make her hold off getting tattoos that Teri felt were childish, until Elena turned 26 or 27. My deal has the same time frame as Teri’s does, so she may get on her motorcycle after getting a tattoo of Stitch on her arm, from Lilo and Stitch.

I tried other times to pay Nastia to do things. I offered to pay her to go back to college, but she declined. I finally hit on what looks like a winner, for at least the day she did it. I told her I’d pay her to read a book. I said I’d pay her to read “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”. I just looked it up and it is banned in some narrow minded communities that think if you stop children from thinking they will be better humans for it. People like that should be banned or sent back to childhood to be reminded how difficult it is. That it’s not ideas that are the problem, it’s not being there to guide them and support them. I’ll get off my soap box. Sometimes I stretch toward the sun and before I know it I’m on my soapbox preaching to the masses the words of freedom and enlightenment, oops, I’m slipping back on to it. The whole idea, just like my life choices, came out of left field with little to no thought. Nuggets like this can’t be examined because you’d never do them. I tell her I’d pay her and this is where the no thought comes in, $50.00 to read a book. It must have been a true inspiration because this past Spring I’d purchased the aforementioned book after reading something about it somewhere, like I said divine intervention. It turns out it is a slightly subversive book about this handicapped, can I call him an Indian in this thin skinned era of ‘who can be offended the quickest by the least offensive remark’. You know those people, they killed comedy and for some reason I want to blame them for killing romantic comedies too. On a reservation and the life he has. It’s considered a book to be read by middle schooler and, yes I can see how it might be a little troublesome having listened to Nastia read the first 40 odd pages, but again hiding these ideas won’t make them go away. Like I said she read the first 40 odd pages and after she closed the book I told her now comes the hard part. You enjoyed what you read. The trick is to pick it up again and again until it becomes a habit. She read on Saturday while I made her birthday cake. Today is Tuesday and the book sadly remains where she left it.