One might try to take a pretty, perfect, photo of a cake—chocolate hazelnut! (Coming next.)

But behind the scene, this is really what life looks like…

Well, in any case, this is how mine looks like…

***

Yes, I know, I know… I am aware that we have discussed “routine” already. But I have something on my mind and, hey, let’s face it, this is what routine does—it keeps coming back! Right? Hence, from time to time I wonder: why can’t I enjoy the daily night time routine with my kiddies? You know, the one that starts right after dinner.

Are you good at math? Because, let’s see… So far,

And if I had to predict the future, I’d say there are definitely a few more years of performing these daily activities for our kids.

Recently, I’ve been asking myself:

Why does watching my lil’ one play with the little fishies that squirt water in her lil’ blue plastic tub, again, feels like a chore?

Why do I grind my teeth when she asks me, for the millionth time, to draw balloons, or flowers, or stars and rainbows for her with the colorful bath crayons when I have already done that in the past week about 8 times?

Why does reading a bed time story feel like a task? How could it be that reading Spot books the 74th time does not excite me anymore?

Spot is so cute.

Why do I feel like I’ve had enough with brushing other peoples’ teeth? Behold, we’ve only been doing this every day and every night in the past 7 years…

And…

And… why…?

Don’t I love them???

(Well, of course I do.)

After contemplating about this for a couple of weeks, I realized the answer is: because it’s a routine.

Do you like routines? Do you love routines?

Well, some routines are good (I need help here: does anyone have a good example?) but some are plainly a daily grind.

But at least… At least I enjoy the cooking!

Because we do have to think and plan meals every day at least three times.

In the past 7 years I’ve prepared about 2300 breakfasts (Not including vacations) and I still like it—especially on weekends!

I’ve cooked about 2400 dinners (Not including vacations and date nights) and I still enjoy it—it’s my “thing”!

I’ve packed about 500 lunchboxes—Wow!—for Junior and 300 for Junioress and I am proud. (Notice I didn’t say “love” it. It is a chore after all. A labor of love?) And that’s a good thing because I know I will be assembling at least a couple of thousands more lunchboxes’ in my future until my kids are grown enough to make their own.

Not to mention making or taking snacks for car rides and going to the park… Zillion of times.

And then, last night, as I laid down next to Junioress in her bed, after giving her a bath, putting a dipaer on her tushie, helping her put on her green PJ with the pink dinosaur (or is it a turtle?), and after reading her two stories, she  stroke my hair and tickled my back and… I was speechless.

Part 1 here.

Part 2 here.

Because of the chemotherapy, he couldn’t enjoy the taste of food. His friends cooked him his favorite home-made meals—bean soup seasoned with pungent cumin and cilantro. His brother brought his favorite dishes from his favorite restaurants to the hospital: tuna sandwich, chocolate, and cream-filled cakes to satisfy the sweet tooth. But my father could barely sense the flavors. Everything tasted bland. I felt his frustration.

For some reason I thought that food that I prepared for him, would do the trick. I baked him heart-shaped cookies and sent them via mail. I had little faith, but I wanted to believe that a touch of me, like my hands kneading the dough, would be strong enough to cut through his numbness. I wanted to believe that the essence of pure vanilla possessed magical powers that would touch his heart and awaken his palate. How stupid was it of me to think that vanilla could stand a chance against beans, cumin and cilantro! (And in a symbolic way, that family would matter more than friends.)

I don’t know if he ate the cookies. He probably gave it a try. I can’t remember if he said anything about them. In any case, I don’t think he grasped the meaning of this act—my last attempt to reach out to the father I always wanted and needed as a little girl, now that he was sick and might die.

A few days before my father went into a second round of treatment, that time involving a bone marrow transplant in addition to chemotherapy and radiation, we talked on the phone. I tried to sound cheerful and optimistic, “I’ll bake you cookies and send them to you. I’ll make anything you want! Which ones are your favorites?”

My father joked, “No need to. Just send me $6 and I’ll buy cookies at the store.” He didn’t get it, or maybe he did?

I didn’t bake him cookies. I didn’t send him $6 either.

That time he stayed at the hospital for four months and never came out.

Eleven months have passed since his death.

I thought about him the other morning as I stood by the kitchen counter. My husband and kids had left the house. I had already made their breakfasts and packed their lunchboxes and it was my turn to eat. Still in my pajamas, my hair was a mess. . . Yogurt, honey, nuts, oats. . . I added the blueberries the kids’ didn’t eat, and I cut a banana in half, crosswise with the peel intact—this is how he did it. I peeled it and sliced it and added it on top of everything. Halved fruits, are they a sign of a person eating alone?

 I placed the second half on a paper napkin. It looked lonely. I put it inside a tall thin glass; it looked sad—maybe it felt what its destiny was going to be. I recalled how my father used to put his halved fruits in glass cups the same size as the fruit’s circumference to prevent their surface from browning. He never used plastic wrap. I doubt that he ever owned any. I left the banana in the cup on the counter with a plan to eat it later. I knew that my husband and kids would most likely not finish the half banana that I had started. . .

Three days later, I discovered the banana standing on its stump in the cup, abandoned. It got pushed into the corner of the kitchen counter where it was left unnoticed. I looked at it suspiciously. With its blackened peel and dark brown spots, it didn’t look so tempting. My father wouldn’t have done it, but I threw it away.

My father looked somewhat like that banana before he died. All shriveled and emaciated, skin darkened from the violent cancer and intrusive treatment (He would have gotten a heart attack if he saw what he looked like, what had become of him). But in spite of his awful deterioration, I am happy for him that he lived the life he wanted. He chose to be free to travel, to party, to eat, to drink (room temperature foods and drinks), to work under his own terms, to do things his way, and to pass along his stories, life lessons, and nagging lectures (but no recipes) to whomever would listen—family, friend, or stranger. I wish I could be annoyed, half-listening to one right now.

July 2010

(Part 1 here.)

I think about him when I drink a cold beer in a tall, sweaty glass, or straight from a chilled bottle. That’s the way to drink beer, right? Well, he preferred his beer at room temperature; never ever cold. And he sure loved to drink beer. (Taking a sip from his bottle of beer on Grandma’s porch is one of my earliest memories of him.) At the modest, one-bedroom, rented house where he lived he always had a case of beer, usually Heineken, waiting by the sliding door leading to the patio. He would sit outside for hours, taking his time, as if the world were standing still, slowly drinking his beer, slowly smoking a cigarette. But usually, he’d be sitting with a friend, or having a conversation on the phone, offering the listener a piece of his long lectures and lessons in life.

He behaved the same way when he visited us, spending hours and hours outside in the backyard patio by himself talking on the phone with his friends, entering the house every now and then to get another bottle of beer, or a cup of cheap wine. I watched him through my kitchen window.

We got a bit closer after I became a mother seven years ago. I didn’t need a father by the age of thirty and I learned that our relationship worked best as long as I didn’t expect him to act fatherly but I wanted my children to have a grandfather. (Unfortunately, he didn’t have a chance to be a grandfather for my daughter—they only met once—but had enough opportunities to spend time with his grandson.)

He was very helpful, patient, and supportive after the birth of my first child. He came for a visit and changed diapers, gave the baby baths, lay on the floor and amused his newborn grandson with toys, conversations, jokes, and songs. He bought a guitar and played it for him. He cooked us eggs poached in tomato sauce, also known as Shakshuka, when we were too busy and worn out from handling the baby. Alas, he burned most of it. We joked about it and after that; I always teased him about his special talent for burning food or cooking it to death. He never used recipes or peeked into a cookbook. Always the improviser, he teased me about my vast cookbook collection.

My son remembers the ice cream his Grandpa David—this is how I called him—bought him once at the mall. I sent them away together and suggested that he pamper his grandson with ice cream. That was the only time I saw my father (who rarely ate ice cream because of his aversion to cold foods and drinks) eat ice cream. He got himslef a chocolate ice cream and a dreadfully blue-colored one for my boy. I found them sitting together on a butterfly-shaped bench, melting in the sun, licking their cones.

Another time, I suggested he buy his grandson one of the gigantic, multi-colored lollipops that kids get all excited about.

“What for? He won’t be able to finish it anyway.” My father didn’t get it.

“Trust me. He will love it! And love you forever. . .” I urged.

He argued, but then complied.

Now, every time we pass a candy store and my son spots the huge, rainbow-colored lollipops that no kid was ever able to finish—or so I assume—he talks about the time when Grandpa David brought him one.

And every Friday, when we have dinner–we light candles, drink wine, and I bake a cake—my son, his grandson, lights a candle in Grandpa David’s memory—a pink votive in the shape of a heart which I originally bought with Valentine’s Day in mind. The heart-shaped votive reminds me of the heart-shaped vanilla cookies I baked for my father when he stayed at the hospital for the first round of treatment, radiation, and chemotherapy.

(Part 3 here.)

Bananas usually make me think of children. Like little kids, they are sweet and innocent. Just think about the way toddlers squish a banana with their chubby little fingers as they try to peel it, turning it into mush. Or the noises babies make when they chew on a chunk, chomping it down with their puffy, toothless gums. Bananas are fairly easy to swallow, unlike so many other things in life when you grow up. They provide a misleadingly smooth, uncomplicated introduction to food and living.

But the other morning, a banana triggered thoughts about my father. To be more exact, it’s half a banana that made me think of him as I stood in the kitchen alone, still in my PJs, my hair uncombed. My husband and kids had left home for work and school. Finally, the house went quiet. It was my turn to eat breakfast. Thick yogurt, a drizzle of honey, a trickle of walnut oil, a sprinkle of toasted almonds, a fistful of shredded oats, and half a banana, sliced, added on top.

I think about my father every time I eat only half of a fruit because he used to do that whenever he visited me and my family. I suppose he treated his fruits the same way at the house in Los Angeles where he lived by himself the past two decades. Planning ahead the night before, he would take any chilled fruit he desired out of the refrigerator and leave it on the countertop to warm to room temperature; he didn’t like cold foods. Even when he stayed with us, he still ate his breakfast alone and by the time we got there, he was already midway through or finished with his breakfast. Then, I’d find half a banana, half a peach, and half an orange left on a plate, on the countertop, cut side down to prevent it from browning.

“And what am I supposed to do with the second halves of all these fruits?” I asked.

“Well, why won’t you eat them?” he replied simply.

“But I don’t want to”, I rebelled. “Just because you chose to eat these fruits doesn’t mean that I have to finish what you had started!”

“Well, it’s too much for just one person,” he explained.

“So why won’t you eat one whole fruit instead, like a normal person?” I shot back at him and couldn’t help but wonder: was this the result of years of living alone?

I didn’t grow up with my father—he left when I was about three years old. We didn’t live on the same continent or state other than those first few years of my life. In my thirties, we reconnected as the geographical distance between us got smaller—only one state, Oregon, separated us. We visited each other once or twice a year and talked more often on the phone. Then, he got his chance to try to educate me with his long speeches to which I was only half-listening, and I had my chance to object and rebel. It’s the closest we’ve ever been; we had seven good years. Eleven months ago he died of leukemia, a ruthless type that killed him in less than a year after he was diagnosed.

It’s funny in a way for me to see how I am like him sometimes even though I wasn’t shaped under his influence for most of my life. For example, when I go to a restaurant with my husband and children, I catch myself chatting with the servers about topics not related to the menu, just like he used to do. Oh, he loved to befriend and joke around with the restaurant’s staff! So much in fact that many times I felt neglected and ignored to the point that it made me angry and disappointed in him. He would interact with a waiter or a waitress more than he did with us, his own family who was sitting at the table with him. I’d get furious: why does he waste these valuable, rare moments that we are together by talking with strangers instead of us? (So, unlike him, I keep my interactions with the wait staff friendly but short.)

 “You never use the garbage disposal?” he asked me once. “It’s good to turn the garbage disposal every now and then, you know, it will keep it in working condition. If you don’t let it run, it will get stuck,” he would reprimand.

“I don’t care if it gets stuck. I don’t use it anyway.” I rejected his suggestion.

These days, turning the garbage disposal on, letting it run for a few seconds has become a weekly ceremony for me because of his continuous nagging. I can hear the bits of food the dishwasher washed away through the pipe that had gotten stuck down there. I admit it, he was right.

I think about him every time I use a paper napkin at the kitchen table. “No napkins? How can you not have napkins on the table?” he complained.

“OK, OK, I’ll buy some napkins,” I gave in.

But now. . . Now I haven’t a clue how we got by all those years when we didn’t have paper napkins on the table. A child has a runny nose, or has red pasta sauce smeared all over his face, or watermelon juice dripping from her chin onto her rounded belly on a hot day and, ta-da! I have a napkin within immediate reach to clean up the mess or my kid’s face.

I certainly think about my father when motherhood becomes so tiring and stressful that I fantasize about running away from my family to be all by myself, free. But it scares me to death to do so. How can a parent do such a thing? I never will.

(Part 2 here.)

Today is my father’s birthday.

(On 8/12 it’ll be a year to his death.)

It’s funny how songs with the word “Easy” remind me of him… Like this one.

It’s been a while since I’ve been thinking about this song, Take It Easy by The Eagles, we once heard together on the radio – on a classic rock station. We were driving together in the car… Maybe it was during one of our trips together… Maybe we were on vacation… Or maybe it was during one of his visits with us and maybe Junior was in the car too, listening and watching us sing…

I remember the weather was nice and sunny, and we had fun.

Sun, summer, singing, driving… This combination always makes me feel so free.

I loved to hear him sing and play his guitar.

He sang beautifully and he knew all the words.

I joined him in the chorus and we sang together…

Take It Easy by The Eagles

Well, I’m running down the road
Tryin’ to loosen my load
I’ve got seven women on
My mind,
Four that wanna own me,
Two that wanna stone me,
One says she’s a friend of mine
Take it easy, take it easy

Don’t let the sound of your own wheels
Drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Don’t even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand
And take it easy

Well, I’m a standing on a corner
In winslow, arizona
And such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed
Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me
Come on, baby, don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love is
Gonna save me
We may lose and we may win though
We will never be here again
So open up, I’m climbin’ in,
So take it easy

Well I’m running down the road trying to loosen
My load, got a world of trouble on my mind
Lookin’ for a lover who won’t blow my
Cover, she’s so hard to find
Take it easy, take it easy

Don’t let the sound of your own
Wheels make you crazy
Come on baby, don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love is
Gonna save me, oh oh oh
Oh we got it easy
We oughta take it easy

***

Allow me to be brutal for a second and tell you right away what you will never read on my blog; stories about how much my parents loved each other. This is probably why I sulked for four days after I read Lorna’s post about her parents, On Food, Love, and Family.

Every time I read about someone else’s normal family and their love for one another I have tears in my eyes. I cannot help but feel joy (for them) mixed with pain. And a pinch of jealousy.

So I felt somewhat gloomy-doomy for a few days. By the fourth day I got it!

A loving relationship between parents is one of the greatest gifts that the parents can give to their children. And while I can do nothing about the past and choices I didn’t make, I sure can focus on the present, and the future, and what I can do. And I look at what I do have.

Suburban Cowboy mentioned to me the other day that we’ve been together for nearly 10 years! He’s been thinking about it (Ohhhh….). It’s been wonderful so far.

We constantly work on our relationship and it gets better and better every day. I won’t tell you that we don’t have our moments, our arguments, conflicts, and misunderstandings. We do. Any couple does, right?! And still, as a friend once described us, we operate together like a “well-oiled machine”. Now I must add a and an exclamation mark to that!

So I don’t have love stories of my parents to share, but I hope that Suburban Cowboy and me will provide enough good material for our children to talk about one day… That thought made me happy.

That’s us back in 2001 while on a trip to Cyprus.

2002, Columbia River, Oregon

Washington

(No, we don’t own a boat. Don’t get all excited.)

In the meantime, while we create our legacy, allow me to share a few links to beautiful and inspiring stories about parents, and love, and food:

Elise from Simply Recipes adores her parents. She has a lot of recipes that start with “Mom’s…” and “Dad’s…” and that says a lot.

Tara Weaver from Tea & Cookies always weaves the complexity of relationships into her posts. I love that about her blog. You should read her post about her mother, A Very Special Day.

Sweet Jessie from Cakespy wrote Sugar mama: An ode to the sweetest mom ever. The title itself made me go “Ohhhhhh…”, but the post is also beautiful and you should read it.

I can’t forget Dianne from White on Rice post from way back in February 2009 about Vietnamese Braised Pork & eggs in caramel – Thit Heo Kho Trung Flashbacks from my mom’s kitchen. It also brought tears to my eyes.

Molly from Orangette once tweeted to me that her parents are “very easy to love”. It shocked me that someone can declare so simply this sort of declaration. I’ll never forget that. I loved her post “A first-rate mess” about her mother the “champion crab-leg sucker”.

Hmm, so we have 2 pairs of parents and 4 mothers… Well, mothers are a special case; they always win.

***

I have also tweeted (@1familyfood) and Facebook-ed asking for more links to posts of this sort and received a few links:

Adrienne from A Big Mouthful wrote about how she learned to make broccoli kugel with her mom.

Olga from Mango & Tomato collaborated with her dad to make Baked Trout with Vegetables 

Roz from Roz’s Scrumptious Recipes loves her mother-in-law and made tortilla soup inspired by her

Lara wrote her “multi-generational households” in her post Orzo Primavera.

***

L, I love you.

Happy 1st decade anniversary!

We look so serious above… but mostly we’re not…

Have you seen Suburban Cowboy do the hoola hoop dance?

***

Shish, that’s a lot of responsibility!

And Suburban Cowboy, as the good dad that he IS, sure takes this job seriously.

(Suburban Cowboy, this is my present to you for 2010 Father’s Day. You know how I like to receive my presents before the actual celebration day…)

Both of us would like to see our kids become self-sufficient, and the sooner the better. Because we would really love to catch up on some sleep and be able to complete a sentence or a thought before we get too old. A nice weekend getaway would be nice too.

And Suburban Cowboy takes this one step farther than I do. He really teaches the kids important stuff. For example, the other day he taught Junior how to change a burnt light bulb in the garage.

It starts with climbing and sitting on top of mommy’s car,

(Hmm, if I haven’t taken it to the car wash the day before, they could have cleaned my car too.)

Then he explained how to change a burnt light bulb in the car!

He is really good with changing light bulbs.

That task involved some reading too.

It’s a very manly job, don’t you think? (When was the last time you, girls, have changed a light bulb in your car?)

And, what do you know? It actually worked! Ta-da!

I have little faith in Do-It-Yourself projects. I am so dependant.

Their next job to tackle, the dishwasher.

Suburban Cowboy and junior did some research on the internet – the boys LOVE to do research on the internet! – to find the model of our machine and the parts they needed.

They shopped online too! (Not my kind of shopping, but… Whatever gives them pleasure.)

Ah, Bing, what would we have done without you? We’d have to call Mr. Rooter if you did  not exist in our lives.

Here he is, demonstrating how to pump air into a beach ball. This is some serious stuff! (Although I wish I took that photo from a different angle. Wink, wink.)

…and how to play safely in the street

… and so many other important things. Like, do the laundry,

most of all…

He teaches them how to shave.

Because…

one day they

they will have to

know

how to shave

properly

…

Right?

Oh, yes, you missed a spot.

Yeah, right there…

So, how was your Mother’s Day?

My morning started with blintzes as I was sitting in the kitchen, admiring the little gifts the kids made. I was happy. I felt all sweet inside. But it could have been the result of too much jam in my blintze.

By the way, thank you teachers for helping the kids make those little treasures!

And let’s be honest here for a second. Without the teachers, Mother’s Day would not be the same.

And speaking of teachers…I found a sweet e-mail sent by Junior’s teacher. He sent a note to all the mothers of the kids in his class. This is what he wrote:

Hi,

I just wanted to take a moment to honor and celebrate all of the wonderful moms in our community.  There is much that you do and so much that you give that doesn’t always get fully recognized and appreciated, but as a teacher of young children, I can fully attest to just what a tremendous difference you make. It always inspires me to see how much of your strength, wisdom, trust, kindness, and love is reflected in the eyes of your children, and I know that these are the things that sustain them as they make their way in the world.

In my eyes, you are truly awesome!

With Love,

–Steve

Ohhh, it melts my heart every time I read it. (I read it 5 times.) I think we’ll send Junior to this class for an extra few years!

Suburban cowboy, on the other hand, still needs to learn about Mother’s Day. Maybe I should send him back to school?

There were plenty of HINTS. But he didn’t get it. So I think I’ll just have to take matters into my own hands. Since my employers are too young (see this post), I’ll have to take care of it myself.

Here’s the HINT:

How can a person not get it?

But luckily for him, I had a very tight neck, back, and hips, and had a massage last week when the brilliant idea of owning a hoola hoop was born. So I told him that “just in case you don’t have a plan for Mother’s Day” (and I was sure that this year, by Friday, he would have), “I’d be happy to have a hoola hoop.”

And so, I give you Suburban cowboy practicing his hoola hooping skills:

and there he goes again

OK, this is so much better than a ring. Forget the ring!

(I, on the other hand, really need to learn how to take photos using the shutter speed mode!)

After hoola hooping, the three of them went to the grocery store and I had some quiet time.

Then later, as I was making potato salad for lunch…

an invisible little dwarf sneaked into the kitchen and left these on the counter, and ran away giggling.

I wondered who could that be.

I was glad to get fresh daisies – my favorite flowers – because my daisy plant looks like this:

Then, we had a nice lunch outside

The weather was fab for Mother’s Day.

And then we went to the park, and then back home.

And then we cooked dinner.

And then Suburban cowboy made fantastic swordfish steaks (I’ll make him share the recipe), and my little dwarf wanted to help with shooting it in the sunset,

But I felt like making fettuccine with cream and mushrooms and a hint of lemon.

So we had a little argument. The dishes didn’t match much.

But we went ahead with it, and each dish was good on its own and together with the other one as well.

And we enjoyed dinner. It was really nice. The kids were pretty quiet for a change because they were tired after hours of running around in the park in honor of Mother’s Day .

So overall… it was a regular, normal, good day.

… Besides the extra flowers, and hugs, and little gifts, and dancing, and kisses.

How was your Mother’s Day?

***

Today’s bite, oh, such a heavy topic. But a topic that fascinates me. And a universal one, I’m sure.

Here’s something I wish I read 15 years ago. It’s from a book a good friend recommended called “My Mother, My Self” by Nancy Friday. I’m only on page 17 but there are two pieces I’d like to share:

“Believe that I love you, no matter what I say or do to you,” is the message behind the madonna. “No one will ever love you as I do. Mother loves you best in all the world and I will always be there for you.” Many mothers offer this kind of impossible love because they are lonely and want to bind their daughters to them forever. All mothers imply it because they are in a trap too: to suggest less is to be “a bad mother.”” (Page 5)

and

“I have heard daughters say that they do not love their mothers. I have never heard a mother say she does not love her daughter… the myth that mothers always love their children is so controlling…” (Page 10)

I’m also intrigued by the family-food connection, you know, and I’ve found Cindy’s post on Fix me a snack blog, We Are What We Feed Our Children? to be thought-provoking. I could not help but think about the deeper meaning of the act of feeding my children and what it means about our relationship, our needs and wants, and how they are met, or not. I know I put a lot more than just food in each and every snack, dinner, or lunch box. There is so much more than a sandwich, a  fruit, or a treat, (or a surprise love note) that goes into that bag, or onto their plates. Way beyond just food itself. Way beyond.

So, when you’re feeding your family, what are you giving them?

***

And I’ve been thinking about this song too (the lyrics below):

Daughters

Lyrics by John Mayer

I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But she’s just like a maze
Where all of the walls are continually changed
And I’ve done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I’m starting to see
Maybe it’s got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Oh, you see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now I’m left
Cleaning up the mess he made

So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Boys, you can break
You’ll find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without the warmth from
A woman’s good, good heart

On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the guide and the weight of her world
So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too

***

Give your kids a hug (no matter how old they are).

xo,

Me