TransGriot Note:Guest post from Renee, my fave mommy blogger and the editor of Womanist Musings
I love to be in the kitchen when I am able, and I love to cook for my
family. I watch hours of the Food Network everyday as I write blog
posts, looking for new ideas. I like to continually introduce my family
to different foods and new flavors. Baking however, is something that I
am not a fan of. It could be because cooking is art and baking is a
science. Whether you are baking a cake or cookies, inevitably the
measuring cups and measuring spoons have to be used, whereas; when you
cook, you can add a bit of this and that, and alter the recipe to your
particular palate.
My love and respect of food means that I cannot stand letting food go
to waste. The desire to ensure that everything we purchase gets
consumed, means that at least once a week, I get into a battle with the
kids about eating the leftovers. When I notice that the banana's have
reached the point where they are singing
Swing Low Sweet Chariot,
inevitably I will bake a banana bread to ensure that they are
consumed. This is something that I used to hardly ever do, because my
family loves bananas. They are usually the very first fruit eaten, that
is until recently.
The last three weeks, I have found 6-8 bananas well past their prime in
the fruit bowl, and so I have made a double size banana bread, which was
consumed in one day btw. At first, I was really pleased that they ate
the bread, but when it happened again the next week, I started to
realize that something was most definitely up.
Last night, I couldn't sleep and so I decided to surprise them with
peanut butter and jam muffins for breakfast. The children love it when I
bake, and I knew that this would be a wonderful breakfast surprise for
them. As I mixed the peanut butter with oil, brown sugar, flour and
eggs, I thought back to a few years ago when
Destruction pointed
out that other mommies bake far more often than I do. At the time, I
really saw it as him using my gender to get me to create culinary
delights for them, and quickly pointed out that I would be happy to take
him to the bakery. When that didn't work, he actually attempted to
order me into the kitchen. Though he was only four at the time, as you
might well imagine, this did not have the result that he intended.
Each time I do get around to baking for my family, whatever I make gets
consumed quickly. They always ooh and aah about how good it is, and say
that because I do it so infrequently, that they have to get their share
as quickly as possible. At any rate, while I was baking the muffins
last night, I began to wonder if the sudden appearance of soft bananas,
was to get me to bake for them more often. How exactly do kids who are
more than capable of eating 2-3 bananas a day, if I don't monitor them,
suddenly stop eating bananas altogether? Then I thought about the fact
that the unhusband, and the kids have all taken turns mentioning to me
that the bananas are getting soft, and that if we don't eat them soon,
that something would have to be done. Uh huh.
There you have it folks. The menfolk in my family are crafty, crafty,
crafty. I believe that they have avoided eating the bananas, because
they knew that I would not let them go to waste. I believe they have
realized that if they could just forgo their desire for a little while,
that the soft bananas would result in a warm and comforting banana
bread. Yes, if they stopped eating and then made a point of telling me
how much they love the banana bread when I made it, I would be inspired
to keep baking. Readers, I am being exploited and manipulated. It took
me awhile to figure out what was going on, but now I am sure of it.
I am sure that they were much encouraged when the peanut butter muffins
appeared this morning. Yes, those crafty, crafty, crafty menfolk must
have believed that had finally broken me. Not only did I bake a banana
bread this week, I baked them muffins. Earlier in the week, I had even
mentioned making an apple cake, because this time of the year, apples
are plentiful and cheap. If you look in my fruit bowl right now, you
will see that the menfolk have consumed all of the pears, but the apples
mysteriously are still in the bowl. Uh huh. I now firmly believe that
they are attempting to shift the great banana bread conspiracy to
apples, to get me to produce an apple cake.
I cannot prove my suspicions conclusively, but I do believe that the
sudden lack of consumption of fruit, combined with the occasional
comments about the possibility of fruit going to waste, amounts to
strong evidence that I have been played. This weekend, I plan to
present the menfolk with my findings. I am certain that
Destruction will be the one to cave first. He has never been good at keeping a secret, whereas;
Mayhem
and the unhusband are like a vault. I am not sure what kind of penance
I should sentence them to once their guilt and manipulation have been
revealed, but there most certainly shall be justice. I have always
known that they have the potential to be crafty, but to have all three
of them manipulating me this way, is something I never would have
expected them to be capable of. This is actually worse than Sparky's
Beloved hiding the bread maker, to get him to bake him fresh bread daily
by hand. Yes, it's treachery
I think that the three of them need to spend time in kitchen baking me
something. Yes, yes, I most certainly do. Now that I am on to them, I
shall hence forth give them the side eye every time they mention any
sort of baked good. There will be no more baking on a weekly basis.
