Big Daddy Paul

Malcolm and I had a tough week. We had a number of knock down, drag ‘em out fights, and we yelled at each other more than we talked. By thursday, we looked at each other with scorn like two boxers before a bout. I was at or near the bottom and needed a day where we could focus on having a good time together and not worry about routines, rules and polite society. So, I designed the perfect date.

We set off after swim class on Friday to engage in some father and son shenanigans.  Our first stop was to go bowling. It was amusing, (chucking big rocks at stuff usually is) but since neither one of us had any beer, we didn’t last very long. We left the bowling alley and made a bee line for Nation’s, a chain who’s byline is “Giant Hamburgers.” I love local organic food, but there is definitely a place in my heart for a thick juicy cheeseburger. We feasted and told each other knock knock jokes. It was pure bliss.

After lunch, we decided to hit up the local horse track. Malcolm loves horse tracks, and I love him for it. It combines my two favorite things, short mexican men and gambling. Malcolm and I spied the horses as they came out from the stables and picked our favorites. I usually chose the horse that I thought was the best looking and Malcolm shouted out the first number he saw, or any horse that went to the bathroom while we were watching. We then bet according to our expert research.  While waiting for the race to start, Malcolm and I had our own little races and proceeded to run along the grandstands, parallel to the tracks. This delighted the degenerate gamblers in attendance who smiled at us from behind their racing forms and dirty magazines. We raced back and forth enough that I think the degenerates were actually taking action on us.  I could have sworn I heard a giant, “Shit!” when I crossed the finish line before Malcolm in one of our races. We hit a big race ($23 on a $2 bet,) and called it a day. The day was completely as I wanted it to be.  We hugged and talked, smiled at each other, and took time off from our adversarial relationship to enjoy each other’s company. Malcolm could not stop talking about all the fun we had and was quick to tell mommy all about how we won $23 on the 7 and 1 horses. I didn’t need to tell mommy anything, she could see the happiness on my face. That look of happiness is probably why she didn’t chew me out for feeding my kid crap to eat, taking him gambling, and let him hang around degenerates who hang out at horse races and read dirty magazines.Win win!

Now, I am not talking about giant steaks or plates of nachos that will make your colon cringe.  Those things will be around for a long time and for good reason.  I am talking about large agricultural companies that put tons of crap in their food and are secretly trying to poison your dog.  Well, I have no proof of the last part, but still, processed food is not good for you.  I say eat whatever the hell you want, just use real food to make it.  All those companies out there putting crap in our food: look the hell out!

Item #1 – Hashbrowns.  Hashbrowns don’t need to be frozen and taste like cardboard.  I had a bunch of potatoes sitting around from a recent shipment of our produce box the other morning and I thought, “Why not turn these lumpy brown tubers into a tasty breakfast treat?”  So, I did, and you can too! Just peel the potatoes, grate them with a cheese grater, and then cook them in a non-stick pan with oil or butter (maybe four or five minutes a side).  It’s easy, and it is way cheaper than paying a big food company to process the food and make it worse for you.  I think I ended up paying around $.12 for those hashbrowns, and they tasted better than lame excuse for hashbrowns that they freeze and give to you in a plastic bag. Paul: 1, Big Food: 0.

Item #2 -Applesauce.  Don’t go buying a big jar of that expensive, crappy applesauce with a bunch of extra sugar, unnecesary ingredients and the large severed human ear that inevitably makes its way into the batch.  Whenever you have a hankering for what the French refer to as sauce of the apple, just do this: peel an apple, core the apple, put the pieces in a blender, turn blender on, and then enjoy the freshest most delicious applesauce you have ever tasted.  We use fuji apples, but I would think almost any variety would do.  Sure, you’ll have to clean your blender, but you should have been spending more time with your blender anyways.  What kind of blender owner are you?  Cost for a bowl of applesauce: $.69.  Paul: 2, Big Food: 0.

Item #3 Popcorn. A long time ago, when times were simpler, we all drank in the morning and smoked in bed.  Back then, popcorn was not made in a microwave.  I am glad to say that we have broken the chains of bondage and no longer make popcorn in the microwave.  Neither should you.  Add a generous amount of canola oil to a saucepan, and fill the bottom of the pan with a layer of popcorn.  Put a cover on that pan, because there’s gonna be an explosion, a flavor explosion! Shake the popcorn pan every now and again until it pops regularly.  Then keep shaking it until it stops popping.  Pour the popcorn out into a bowl, add a little pat of butter into the pan to melt in, then put back about half of the popcorn into the pan to coat with butter.  After returning all of the popcorn to the bowl, add a couple shakes of salt and toss.  I guarantee that you will not find better popcorn for watching 30 Rock, and it is quicker to make than loading a bag of bizarre orange shit into a tin box and zapping it with invisible rays.  This popcorn is so good it will make you want to drink in the morning and smoke in bed, and a bowl of it costs around $.50.  Paul: 4, Big Food: 0.  That last one was a blowout.

Putting large agricultural businesses into bankruptcy is a fun and tasty way to spend your nights and weekends.  I highly suggest you try it.  You can buy everything you need for these three items in bulk or in the produce aisle, so you will need little or no packaging, making the earth proud of your gluttony.  It is cheaper and may even be quicker than the processed versions.  Better yet, most of this stuff will come to you in a local, organic produce box, so feel free to order one of those.  I am not saying you need to eat perfectly, I sure don’t.  Just doing little things like these three things, though,gets us pointed in the right direction.

Anyone else got any tricks up their sleeves?  Anyone found a severed ear in their applesauce?

What a long strange trip it has been for us guys.  During our neanderthal days, we killed animals on the hunt and took neanderthalettes to keep the cave tidy and raise our young.   After some time, we invented church so that we could marry our ladies and then invented new churches so we could divorce them. Then, we invented bread so that we could say that we brought something home every day (even though we had no idea what to do with it when we actually got there.) Things pretty much stalled out there until World War II, where we went out and slaughtered one another, leaving our ladies to go out and work in the factories for a living. Forced to deal with the fact that women wanted to work, we have become more involved in the raising of the children, so much so that some of us have evolved to the point where we are the ones raising the little neanderthals (we may have left the cave, but kids are the same dirty, stinky animals that were raised back in the day.)

This progression was not lost on me this week, as we prepared to host Amy’s book club at our house.  We have evolved to the point where working women now gather and are fed by men who keep the home.  We get this honor once a year, when we host some of the movers and shakers in the HR software industry as they get together to swill good wine, eat tasty food, and trash or love whatever the book selection is that month.  These women are intelligent, successful and know the difference between gourmet and canned chili (damn them!).

I was told to offered to make the spread for the event, and then got really bummed to learn that the book was set in India.  Typically, there is a connection between the location of the book and the cuisine served for these book clubs, so I had just signed up for cooking Indian food (which I know absolutely nothing about) for 8-12 foodies.  Oops!  I began to stress.

I eventually came up with a couple of dishes to serve,and tried them out for Amy the night before book club.  The food tasted somewhere between food available at an Indian restaurant and food rotting in an Indian restaurant’s garbage dumpster.  I got even more stressed.  I busted my hump and the event came and went without anyone telling me I needed to go back to work as a lawyer, so that was nice.  A few people were even gracious enough to tell me that they enjoyed eating it, although I am sure the wine had more to do with that than my culinary skills.

As I laid exhausted on the couch afterwords, I thought about how silly the caveman would think I am.  “You a turd,” he would say (cavemen grammar is awful.)  “Women cook, men work.”  I could give him a lesson in how we are better off in a world of gender equity, how much fun it is to be a stay at home parent, or even the feeling of satisfaction one gets in providing a meal that others claim to enjoy.  Or, I could make fun of his back hair.  Either way, we’ve come a long way, and that’s just fine with me.

Amy has her annual “Oracle Shuts Down San Francisco Conference” this week.  We dropped her off at BART this morning,and we will not be seeing her til thursday.  She will be hanging with the movers and shakers, dining at fantastic events, and otherwise being very grownup (until she has a third cocktail.)

Malcolm and I will be having quite a different experience.  We’ll start it off tonight by watching the football game.  If Amy were around, they would talk to each other in an enriching way and play some games which develop his ever expanding intellect.  Malcolm and I, on the other hand, will stare at grown men bludgeoning the snot out of each other, and do it in virtual silence.  I could tell him that the game is a battle of good versus evil, but with the Jets playing the Dolphins, what story could I possibly tell?

We will be eating a steady diet of crap while Amy is gone.  I have a hard time cooking anything too exciting when Amy is gone, so Malcolm and I will make do on mounds of macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, and dessert from bakesale betty’s.  I have tried to make gourmet healthy food for just the two of us, but every time I have, the meal has ended in tears (from both of us! I get really upset when people don’t like my cooking.) I am not sure who is going to get more out of the week, as I don’t often get to treat myself to kids’ food regularly.

Malcolm will also look a lot more disheveled at school this week.  I am kind of a slob myself, and dress like it is my duty to protect the world against my devilish good looks.  Amy dresses Malcolm a lot and usually cares that Malcolm’s clothes, A) are clean and B) match, while I generally let Malcolm dress himself and pat myself on the back every time I get him out of the house with A) pants on and B) a shirt on.  Malcolm’s teachers will definitely be able to realize that I have sole Malcolm duty this week.

With Amy gone, my wine consumption will plummet, too.  We consider wine to be a contributing member of our marriage, and without her there, drinking wine feels like cheating. I know that she will be cheating, as her evenings will be spent drinking fabulous wines at expensive restaurants.  I like to think that I am a better man than that, so I will not be cheating on her.  I will drink beer.  Wait a minute, beer and macaroni and cheese with a football game on?  I hope she goes out of town for a month!