Throwing Off the Kitchen Shackles

After a lifetime of preparing meals, I've reached my threshold. John is going to take over in the kitchen.

"I am?" he said, startled, when I told him.

Actually, when we started dating I couldn't cook at all-- unless you consider Jell-O with fruit cocktail floaters a repertoire. It didn't take John long to notice what a useless culinary wretch I was. One afternoon several months into our courtship, he passed through the kitchen of his flat where I was struggling to prepare corn on the cob – the centrepiece of my gourmet dinner – and spied four ears bobbing about upright, in a small pan of boiling water.

"What on earth is that?" he asked.

"What does it look like?" I answered, wondering what he could possibly be referring to.

And with those five ill-chosen words, our wedding was put on hold until I could get a grip. Fortunately, I had a couple of redeeming features, like big hair and legs that looked good in a mini-skirt -- important attributes for a girl in the '60s.

Once married, I quickly made up for lost time. Wine sauces were my deliverance: I smothered meat dishes in red wine sauces; poultry and vegetables in white; and poured brandy or rum over desserts. Some evenings I served all three. I was so soignée.

In those days, it was easy to appear sophisticated. If you brought out artichokes, the room fell silent. A friend who concocted a vile little first course – a mound of jellied consommé topped with a globule of sour cream and a spoonful of black caviar – was the talk of the town for weeks. Even gazpacho was considered urbane.

"Jeepers, what is this stuff ? It's got the consistency of a marsh floor!" exclaimed my friend Sally the first time I served it. But after that initial gagging incident, she was charmed by its pungency.

To be safe, I always began cooking supper at three in the afternoon. This gave me enough time to prepare a second meal if the first didn't turn out, with an hour left over to shower, change and tie a velvet ribbon in my hair before John came home.

There were disadvantages to this system. For one thing, the meat would turn to porridge if left simmering for four hours; for another, the sauces would dwindle away, requiring extra lashings of wine to perk them up. Often, by the time John got home at 7:30, the food was wine-logged and so, of course, was I. There I'd be, my little hair ribbon all askew, blowing welcome-home-honey kisses up at him, horizontally, from the couch.

Naturally, there were regrettable episodes in that first year. Here are three of the lessons I learned from them: First, cayenne and paprika are similar only in colour. Second, if you've never poached fish before, you'd better like gumbo.  And, finally, it's better to be known for your salmon than your salmonella. This I discovered the evening John's epicurean boss, Frank, came to dinner and our oven would only preheat.

"What exquisite salmon!" gushed Frank extravagantly, drawing a mouthful over his famed palate. "Scottish or Norwegian? Baked, right?"

There was an audible suck-in sound from John's end of the table. His promotion seemed in jeopardy.

"Close," I burbled. "Chicken. Half-baked."

But that was 13,000 meals ago. Now I was about to be liberated.

Over coffee the other day, I told my friend Lesley about John taking over in the kitchen.

"Wow," she declared, "you're brave. When I let Rob have the run of the kitchen, the first thing he served was barbecued calf’s tongue with a mustard sauce. It made me heave. The next day I was back in the kitchen."

"Sounds like a ploy to get out of cooking," I replied. "John loves a challenge. I'll probably walk in tonight and find beef tenderloin with mixed peppercorns, and something spectacular for dessert."

Pumped with anticipation, I headed home. John was in the kitchen, surrounded by every possible pot, pan and utensil, his debut meal nestled nearby on a warming platter.

"You'll love it," he enthused, grabbing some plates. "It's barbecued calf’s tongue with mustard sauce..."

Personally, I think something that's been in a calf’s mouth for a year has no business being in mine. It took me an hour and a litre of water to get the thing down. Then, I explained to John -- admittedly 18 decibels above my normal range -- that if he truly loved me, he'd prove it by learning to cook good things. He agreed.

But later in the evening something happened that gave me pause: John was sitting in an armchair quietly studying the salad section in The Joy of Cooking. Suddenly and without any warning, he jumped up and yelled, "Arugula!? Holy cow, all this time I thought it was something you blew into a handkerchief!"

Can I really entrust the next 13,000 meals to someone so daft? 

© Alena Schram

alenaschram@gmail.com

AN EPHRONESQUE OBSERVATION OF LIFE:  FROM THE PERILS OF FACEBOOK, THE ANNOYING TENDENCIES OF HUSBANDS WHO CO-SHOP, AND THE DEFECTIVE REARING OF GRANDCHILDREN, TO SPORTS CARS FOR THE MENOPAUSAL, BRAS THAT WINCH, AND CHIN HAIRS WITH MINDS OF THEIR OWN.

TO PURCHASE A PAPERBACK IN KINGSTON, VISIT NOVEL IDEA;

AND IN OTTAWA, TRY BOOKS ON BEECHWOOD ($20 + TAX);
OTHERWISE ORDER FROM WWW.COWDYHOUSE.COM. 
ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK FROM THE USUAL SOURCES.

Oh To Be a Susan!

I am an Alena who wasted an entire girlhood longing to be a Susan.

Susans – when I was growing up in 1950s Toronto – were enchanting creatures, with perfect pony tails that bobbed saucily when they walked.

In school at lunch time, Susans took dainty bunny bites out of Saran-Wrapped crustless egg salad triangles. At night they slept in beds with chenille bedspreads, dreaming their sweet Susan dreams under crisp top sheets that folded neatly back over their blankets. And their mothers made casseroles and understood the complexities of roast beef and lump-free gravy.

Alenas, on the other hand, had straight hair parted on one side and held back with a clip.

Alenas ate ham or salami on rye bread, cut haphazardly in two,and bundled up in wax paper. Alenas slept under massive eiderdowns that looked obscene to the casual observer. And Alena mothers thought that casseroles were pernicious concoctions made from decomposing leftovers, and that roast beef lacked brio.

The mothers of Susans were pretty. And modern. They had seductive pageboy hairdos that were spit-curled at night. They smoked cigarettes, and drank cocktails before dinner.

Alena mothers wore their hair pinned up in chignons, and drank wine with their Wiener Schnitzel (“It’s called a wiener what?”), or their goulash (“Gooo-lash!? You’re lying!”).

The parents of Susans didn’t speak a foreign language at home. They didn’t have funny accents either. And when they asked strangers perfectly straightforward simple questions in English, like “Where is the bathroom please?” no one ever replied, frowning, “I’m sorry but I don’t speak French.”

Susans were not Alenas. And Alenas definitely were not Susans.

But hang on. What am I thinking? There were no Alenas, plural, when I was growing up. There was just one. Me.

“Mary, Diane, Janice, Carol, Kathy, Susan, ALENA,” went our class roll call. Lah-di-dah-di-lah-di-THUNK.

“Ewwww, what kind of a name is THAT?” other children would often ask.

Indeed.

Alena and Vera, I knew from endless telling, were my father’s best friend’s twin daughters, killed in wartime. And since my father had once been engaged to a vamp called Vera, Alena had seemed the far less contentious choice when I came along.

Properly pronounced in Czech, it sounded quite reasonable:Ah-le-na, with the accent on the first “a” and a short “e”. But skimmed over a1950s English-only palate, it became Aleeeeena.

I hated it. Why oh why could I not have been born a Susan, I wondered wretchedly --and never more than on gummy summer evenings when neighbourhood parents would call their offspring in from twilight games of hide-and-go-seek.

“Time to come in now!”

Then, one after another in a chorus up the street:

“Mary!”

“Diane!”

“Susan!”

Just as the last grown-up had finished barking, “I MEAN IT! NOW! OR ELSE!” and that silent moment when kids assess the seriousness of parental threats had passed, my father would put his lips to some invisible megaphone and bellow, “AlenKO! Ve are vaiting!”

AlenKO. The hideous diminutive vocative. Wasn’t Aleeeeena bad enough?

It didn’t matter to me that he was a respected member of the legal department of a large corporation; or that my mother had been raised by a nanny and tootled around by a chauffeur. What mattered was that I didn’t fit in, the way Susans did.

My Susan aspirations, such an affliction in childhood, are purely vestigial now. Canadian society has become less rigid and more international: white bread – which my parents regarded as truly deviant – has been overtaken in pre-eminence by whole-wheat and chichi artisanal; bedspreads, covers, and top sheets have given way to low-maintenance duvets; mothers – and even fathers –take pride in their global recipe repertoires; and everyone agrees that if little androgynous Madison or Taylor or Hunter is to succeed in life, she/he must learn to speak a second language. It’s all so belatedly comforting.

One afternoon last summer in Prague, the magnificent Baroque capital of the Czech Republic – home to 95% of the world’s Alenas – I sat in lambent sunshine near the 10^th century Vysehrad Castle and watched a small girl suddenly escape her mother’s clutches and race after a puppy.

“Alena! Alena!” the mother shouted, in alarm.

And I finally had to admit that Alena was, on balance, a pretty swell name.

(c) Alena Schram
www.opinionatedoldcow.blogspot.com
alenaschram@gmail.com

This appeared in Canada's Globe & Mail newspaper, Facts & Arguments page, 10 August 2012.

AN EPHRONESQUE OBSERVATION OF LIFE:  FROM THE PERILS OF FACEBOOK, THE ANNOYING TENDENCIES OF HUSBANDS WHO CO-SHOP, AND THE DEFECTIVE REARING OF GRANDCHILDREN, TO SPORTS CARS FOR THE MENOPAUSAL, BRAS THAT WINCH, AND CHIN HAIRS WITH MINDS OF THEIR OWN.

 

TO PURCHASE A PAPERBACK IN KINGSTON, VISIT NOVEL IDEA;

AND IN OTTAWA, TRY BOOKS ON BEECHWOOD ($20 + TAX);
OTHERWISE ORDER FROM WWW.COWDYHOUSE.COM 
ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK FROM THE USUAL SOURCES.

The Glamour is Gone

In the summer of 1971, my husband, John, was posted to the Canadian High Commission in Lagos, Nigeria, and I prepared to go with him, as foreign service spouses (read: wives) were expected to do back then.

Posting confirmation in hand, John rushed straight to the finance section of then-External Affairs and took out a posting loan to top up our meagre outfitting allowance; I grabbed the money and headed to Ogilvy's, where I used it to buy 12 sets of crystal, china, cutlery and table linens. It didn't matter that we were hopelessly in debt: We could set a beautiful table in hot, humid, post-Biafran War, Nigeria.

"How come you're buying all this stuff?" asked the bewildered young sales assistant, as she rang up my cache.

"My husband's being sent to Africa," I replied loftily, "as a diplomat."

"Oh," she exclaimed, no doubt wondering what a diplomat was, "so what're you going to do?"

Stumped, I answered, "Entertain."

"Wow! Singer or dancer?"

Loyal appendage would have been closer to the truth. I'd read the official handbook and knew my role would be strictly supportive. But I was anxious to do well. In those days, wives figured prominently in their husbands' annual appraisals, and we were in this career together.

According to the handbook, my first task was to send a note to the wife of the high commissioner, declaring our delight at having been selected for Lagos. Composing the message took me half a day and writing it ate up six of my expensive new Birks "informals." Like the calling cards issued to me, these fold-over white note-cards with my official name — Mrs. John R. Schram — prominently embossed on the front, were part of the diplomatic kit.

Once at the post, it was my duty, within three days of our arrival, to call on the high commissioner's spouse, and in full regalia: afternoon dress, nylons, high-heeled shoes. I clearly remember the green and white linen suit that clung to me like a dry-cleaning bag, the white shoes into which I had horned my little sausage feet, and the droplets of perspiration that ran off my nose and trickled down the backs of my pantyhosed thighs.  I knew how important it was to make a good first impression and, sitting nervously on the chintz couch, my teacup and saucer rat-tat-a-tat-ing loudly in my slippery, quivering hand, I just hoped I was succeeding.
 
In those days we all knew that an invitation from our high commissioner — or ambassador — and his wife was a command performance. The diplomatic handbook was quite succinct on the subject: attendance at the Official Residence (O.R.) was mandatory, except in cases of personal ill health or if the officer himself was hosting a function at home; we were there as co-hosts, not as guests; our job was to engage official visitors in conversation, not to stand around talking to our friends.

An invitation to the O.R. also meant arriving 15 minutes ahead of the first guest, and leaving 15 minutes after the last one had gone home. And if, occasionally, it looked as if one or two invitees might not show up, it meant virtually springing out of the hall closet at the last moment, appropriately attired, to fill the vacant chairs at the dinner table.

In return, we were given suitable accommodation (for which we paid a substantial rent, compared to our pathetic salary), a tiny entertainment allowance that was minutely scrutinized, and the promise of a fascinating — and glamorous, too, we hoped — life.

But all that's changed now. These expectations and responsibilities no longer exist. Ask an officer today to attend a dinner in honour of a visiting cabinet minister or a local VIP and chances are the response will be, "Thanks for the invite but I think we'll pass. Taylor's got soccer practice that night."

Suggest that he/she might consider hosting a dinner at home, and you're likely to hear, "Sorry, my spouse isn't interested. And besides, we don't have matching dishes."

Spouses, with busy and fulfilling careers of their own, no longer see themselves as unpaid handmaidens — or the male equivalent — of the now-Department of Foreign Affairs Trade and Development Canada (DFATD). And chatting up a bunch of locals at a formal dinner or attending a charity bazaar with the ambassador's wife have little appeal.

Nor should they. The days of the adoring little wife, lower lip aquiver with pride, working assiduously to support her husband, are over.

No one, we're told, is entertaining at home any longer anyway, so the expectation of lovely accommodation is gone too. Many of the graceful flats and houses in Paris and London, that we used to be put in so that we could host elegant lunches and dinners and get to know -- and influence -- people that mattered to Canada's foreign policy objectives, are about to go on the block, and the profits used to open new missions in emerging economies.  Or pay down the deficit.

Unlike our European and Asian and African and Latin American colleagues who still see value in hosting events at home, Canadian diplomats — at least in London and Paris — will soon be billeted in small apartments, and officers will be encouraged to meet officials, counterparts and contacts in expensive restaurants, the only kind that exist in these particular capitals.

Of course, it doesn't matter a hoot really where the socializing takes place, provided it serves its purpose and gives Canadian taxpayers value for money. But as Canada's former ambassador to the U.S., Allan Gotlieb, points out, inviting someone out for a meal is not the same as having them home: the personal touch is gone, along with the possibility of a more nuanced — and ultimately fruitful — relationship.

Personally, I regret the change: entertaining at home meant I got a vastly expanded world view, complete immersion in an unfamiliar culture, and even the opportunity to exert some influence. There was a sense of purpose, an esprit de corps and, dare I say it without sounding too naive, pride in what we were accomplishing. And if it meant preparing a meal for 10 or 12 after a long day at work, it was — usually, but not always — worth it.

In my opinion, the regalia, the calling cards, the candelabra and the effort that went with them provided Canada with a grown-up, international-standard backdrop to the serious business of diplomacy. But then I'm just a wistful old bag with a cupboard full of crystal, china, and cutlery. And a box of informals with my husband's name on them.

(c) Alena Schram
alenaschram@gmail.com 
  

AN EPHRONESQUE OBSERVATION OF LIFE:  FROM THE PERILS OF FACEBOOK, THE ANNOYING TENDENCIES OF HUSBANDS WHO CO-SHOP, AND THE DEFECTIVE REARING OF GRANDCHILDREN, TO SPORTS CARS FOR THE MENOPAUSAL, BRAS THAT WINCH, AND CHIN HAIRS WITH MINDS OF THEIR OWN.

TO PURCHASE A PAPERBACK IN KINGSTON, GO TO NOVEL IDEA;

AND IN OTTAWA, TRY BOOKS ON BEECHWOOD ($20 + TAX); 
OTHERWISE ORDER FROM WWW.COWDYHOUSE.COM. 
ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK FROM THE USUAL SOURCES.

An African Moment

My husband John and I were standing dispiritedly on a streetcar platform on Spadina in downtown Toronto. We had just returned from a succession of African postings – first to Ghana, then Ethiopia, and finally Zimbabwe – and the light overcoats we were wearing, so fashionable when we’d put them into storage 11 years earlier, were now hopelessly dated, their waterproofing and insulation long gone.

We were bone-cold.

It was one of those dim, late-November evenings, the kind that strum the mind, evoking memories of burning leaves and dank soil, and the baleful onset of a Canadian winter. Children were safely indoors, tucked up behind the comfort of curtains, waiting for their suppers. Shops were beginning to close. And the homeward-bound were pulling on their woolly toques and padded gloves, and rushing to catch their buses and subways.

John was shuffling the large shopping bags I’d weighed him down with, trying to rebalance the load.

“Remind me again,” he said, “what were our reasons for moving back to Canada and not to the French Riviera?”

He sounded a little exasperated. Carrying two new winter coats can do that to you, especially if you’re also lugging two pairs of boots and seven sets of long underwear, both uppers and lowers.

“I think it had something to do with money. Like not having enough of it,” I said, my bone marrow starting to congeal.  Where, I wondered, was Africa’s lambent sunshine when I needed it? And where was that darned streetcar?

“Did we fully explore possibilities in Greece?” I asked, returning to the subject of temperate climates, “Or Cyprus? Egypt? Algeria? What’s a little upheaval when you’re not shivering …”

But we both knew the truth: It was family and friends that had lured us back. And the promise of a good life in a great country. Thirty-six years in the Foreign Service had ratcheted up our pride and, dare I say it, our patriotism.

The platform was starting to congest. People from everywhere on Earth: Canada’s legendary cultural mosaic made flesh. All of them jammed in with us on that long chilly concrete islet, looking into the distance for their transport home.

Just as my eyeballs were beginning to gather rime from the misty night air, I spotted a dazzling and familiar streak of kente – Ghana’s iconic woven cloth. A man nearby was wearing it tightly corkscrewed around his neck. He had on a bobble hat, its ear flaps pulled fiercely down, and a pair of red knitted gloves, adorned with white maple leafs. His jacket – the kind I imagine a lineman would want if he planned to work on hydro poles in the high Arctic – was zipped up tightly. He was taking no chances with the weather.

To us, so recently back from Africa, he appeared to be Ghanaian. He was older, quite tall, with a kindly face and a stature that was effortlessly erect.  Nearby in the crowd stood a young girl – possibly Ethiopian, I thought.

 

I saw him glance down at her, then heard him click his tongue loudly and disapprovingly.

“Your coat is not heavy enough,” he declared, pointing unabashedly. In most parts of Africa, elders offer advice without prompting, and younger people accept it.

But the girl stared back at him, lips defiantly pursed.

He was right in his assessment: She had on a distressingly thin pink jacket, more suited to late spring than late autumn; her spindly legs, jutting out from beneath a summer dress, were bare; and she wore flip-flops with rubber daisies on the toe-straps.

What was her mother thinking, I wondered, letting her out dressed like that?

The answer was immediately and trenchantly clear: Standing directly behind the girl was a tall, beautiful woman, her hair plaited with beads in traditional northern Ethiopian – Tigrayan – fashion, tight against her head in front, full and fluffy in back. She was clad in Ethiopian national attire: a short-sleeved white dress made of gauze-like cotton, embroidered with coloured crosses along the neckline and the edge of the skirt. Every finely woven thread of it was hopelessly inadequate against the cold. Even the natela she had elegantly arrayed over her slender shoulders offered little in the way of protection.

“You need a much heavier coat in Canada,” the man with the kente scarf repeated more forcefully this time, turning slightly to include the woman in his admonition.

The young girl glared at him, still silent.

This was a standoff of deep cultural proportions.

Suddenly and without warning, she blurted, “Where are you from?”

“What?”

The man seemed taken aback with her directness and curiosity.

“What do you mean?” he snapped, frowning.

“Well, are you African?” she asked.

He looked down at her, utterly speechless.

“I said, are you African?” she reiterated, somewhat boldly.

I watched his face turn from disapproving to disbelief, and from disbelief to frank offence.

It was a tense moment.Then he pulled up his shoulders, and waving his maple-leaf-gloved hands in the air, declared with gravitas and visible pride: “I am Canadian!”

Now I’d like to be able to say that at that very moment a marching band appeared out of the darkness and struck up the national anthem. And that the entire platform erupted into song: our home and native land … true patriot love … with glowing hearts … we stand on guard.

But that, of course, didn’t happen.

What did happen though was that for John and me, Canada just got a whole lot warmer.

Alena Schram lives in Amherst Island, Ont.

AN EPHRONESQUE OBSERVATION OF LIFE:  FROM THE PERILS OF FACEBOOK, THE ANNOYING TENDENCIES OF HUSBANDS WHO CO-SHOP, AND THE DEFECTIVE REARING OF GRANDCHILDREN, TO SPORTS CARS FOR THE MENOPAUSAL, BRAS THAT WINCH, AND CHIN HAIRS WITH MINDS OF THEIR OWN.

TO PURCHASE A PAPERBACK IN KINGSTON, VISIT NOVEL IDEA;

AND IN OTTAWA, TRY BOOKS ON BEECHWOOD ($20 + TAX);
OTHERWISE ORDER FROM WWW.COWDYHOUSE.COM
ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK, FROM THE USUAL SOURCES.