Cassie and I aren’t extravagant people. We don’t drive fancy cars, we don’t fill our house with designer furniture, we don’t take trips to Paris (okay, we did once, but it was for our 15th wedding anniversary), we don’t buy clothes at stores that have a lot of accent marks in their names, and we don’t send our kids to private schools. (Okay, we sent them to a Catholic school, but that doesn’t really count. There’s nothing extravagant about those places. Ours would still be using computers from the punch-card era if not for the generous donations by parents.)
Our one indulgence is dining out, and I make no apologies for it. Neither Cassie nor I is a domestic sort, so it’s only logical that we’d rely on other, more skilled people to prepare most of our meals. But that’s only part of it, at least in our rationalizations. Through the years, we’ve viewed it as our civic duty to support as many of the local restaurants as our waistlines would allow. (Now you know why I became so obsessive about excercising.) And if one of these establishments went out of business, we’d mourn it like the passing of a friend.
Of course, things have changed—the belt-tightening of the past several months has been a real kick in the gut, quite literally. (The local restaurateurs can’t be happy about it either.) Gone are the days of eating out on a whim. Most of our meals are now cooked at home, and it’s been nothing short of a disaster.
There haven’t been any fires, but there has been a fair amount of indigestion. And you should see the unseemly spectacle that is our kitchen sink. (Who knew that eating at home produces so many dirty pots, pans and dishes?) On any given night, the sink looks like something that might be featured on a TLC special.
No, this lifestyle change hasn’t been pretty. Here’s a peek into the horror of it all:
Monday, January 9, 2012
In the glory days, we might have opted for a spaghetti dinner from one of the many Italian joints in our rotation, but instead we fend for ourselves. We turn to a gift from the gods: frozen food.
Cassie pops something into the oven, which is more of a challenge than you might think. The knob that controls the oven’s temperature broke off several years ago, forcing us to use pliers to turn it. We never bothered to fix the knob because we used the oven so infrequently, but now the situation is kind of a bummer.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
In the glory days, we might have taken a smorgasbord approach to dinner—say, Jimmy John’s for Cole, Culver’s for Liv, and Thai food for Cassie and me—but not tonight.
Cassie has decided to cook—and I run for cover.
Actually, Cassie has come a long way as a cook. When we were first married, her repertoire consisted of one dish: chili mac. Though this chili mac tasted like something from a Soviet gulag, I dutifully ate it whenever she fired it up. After about five years, however, I felt comfortable enough in our marriage to say as gently as possible that I simply couldn’t eat the chili mac anymore.
Tonight Cassie prepares sloppy Joes from a Weight Watchers recipe, and I have no complaints. Besides, if anyone should be doing the cooking, it’s me since Cassie is the main breadwinner in the family these days. But I’m ashamed to report that my attempts to improve my culinary skills have been half-hearted at best.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
In the glory days, perhaps we would have gone the Italian route again for dinner, but instead it’s all about leftover sloppy Joes. The dishes in the sink mount.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
In the glory days, some tasty Mexican fare from a nearby hole-in-the-wall would have hit the spot, but instead we turn to our freezer again. The meal is so nondescript that I can’t even remember what the hell it is as I write this. The dishes, meanwhile, continue to confound us: Though we cleaned them all this morning, a new batch is starting to mount.
Friday, January 13, 2012
The glory days have been reduced to a glory day. Typically, our one family meal out each week is on Friday, and we play it up for all its worth. Tonight is no exception. We go to a restaurant-bar in our downtown and order ribs and barbecue chicken and chicken tenders and chili and tomato Florentine soup—all the stuff that tastes so much better when someone else cooks it.
Since I’m out of practice, I’ve clearly forgotten the finer points of portion control. Afterward I stagger into the house, glance at the sinister assortment of dishes in the sink, stagger onward to the bedroom and lapse into a food-induced coma. And it’s only 7:30.
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