kitchen therapist » New Southerner

Gag the Gifts

Dec 072010

THE KITCHEN THERAPIST

By MICHELE NIESEN

I’m not cynical about the holidays. I swear. I just don’t do them.

One good thing about being a freelance writer, chef, chicken wrangler and dog biscuit maker is that I don’t have to be on everyone else’s schedule. The media blitz of “doorbusting” and 4 a.m. shopping calls after Thanksgiving has to be the biggest letdown of what could be a really loving holiday. But I can’t blame Macy’s. They’re just trying to move all that crap. That we don’t need. And can’t afford.

But even without the pull of commerce tugging at last year’s sweater neck, I just don’t get on the holiday obligation sleigh anymore. Since 1986 at last count. Maybe too many years working in hospitality got me used to the idea of not being available, I dunno. More than likely it was too many unmet expectations, family tension or other letdowns that seem louder and more jagged during December. I just won’t put myself through it anymore. Give me one good reason why. I listen to some of my normally sane friends complain about going through the motions of driving around looking for gifts, dragging themselves from one clogged parking lot to another looking for something that might suit a recipient. “I’ve included the receipt so you can have one more thing to do in January. Return this thingie I got you under duress. Feliz Navidad!”

Here’s the thing. Don’t get me anything. If I need something I’ll drive on down to the store and buy it. On a stress-free Wednesday afternoon in March. I like twinkle lights and reindeer bells on dog collars too. But Christmas, whether you’re religious or not, needs to stop being about STUFF. It’s about slowing down. Enjoying bundling up with eggnog (hopefully with bourbon) and making fires and seeing folks who maybe don’t have time to gather. But really? We should gather and enjoy each other and break bread more often. Maybe when traffic isn’t so bad.

This year I made bundled “trees” of crepe myrtle branches wrapped with lights and ornaments crafted from magnolia leaves (it pays to date a tree surgeon), and it flanks the entrance to the house to welcome guests for potluck meals. Whether that will happen Dec. 24 or Dec. 15 doesn’t matter. No pressure. The other 11 months of the year are tricky enough.

One fish, two fish, red state, blue state

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Nov 112010

THE KITCHEN THERAPIST

By MICHELE NIESEN

So where will the lines be drawn for the new civil war? It’s not just Mason Dixon lines, it’s all over the place. Right or left? Gay or straight? Right-wing uber-conservative, hater of all but big money and steppin’ on the little guy? Or lefty-spendy on the social welfare program, commie, hippie, pothead, recycler?

Who killed the middle? Why is there an US and a THEM? Why is everything a Salem Witch Hunt?

I live in the mountains. It snows. Dunno if that makes me liberal, but it sure makes me not drive a Miata.

I didn’t even know I was somebody until everyone started pinning their tails on my donkey. “You drive that big SUV? I thought you were a liberal! Sheesh!” What I am is a small farmer with several dogs, bales of hay, chicken feed and lumber. I live in the mountains. It snows. Dunno if that makes me liberal, but it sure makes me not drive a Miata. Next time I’ll be sure to junk that paid for 14-year-old truck for a $30,000 car I can’t afford to save 8 miles a gallon so you think I’m green.

The other day I was tagged again. A woman told me she hoped I wouldn’t lecture her on using a plastic water bottle because she was eco-savvy in too many ways to list, but truthfully she doesn’t care where her tomatoes come from or if they’re organic or out of season. She doesn’t have time for all that. She has a life, you know. But she reads my blog and she sees that I’m a proponent of organic and locally grown, and she doesn’t want to hear it. “And my dress was sewn by someone in a Third World country, and my kids eat cereal with corn syrup, so maybe I should go directly to the gallows.”

Blink. Blink.

Listen, honey, it’s all I can do to get my sneakers on every day and run my tired middle-aged ass around the pasture and clean the chicken coop and wonder why they aren’t laying any eggs, or fix a fence post because a raccoon has torn it out and eaten the latch. I’m wondering about my love life, my bank account, why my middle keeps spreading, whether my elderly mom will be okay alone and what this country is going to do about immigration, which I think about a lot since my boyfriend got deported. Will I do something important or will I merely get by? Will I retire to a beach in Mexico or be walking around town looking for cans followed by a flock of chickens?

We’re all just trying to do the best we can. We have a lot more in common than we think, and if we just turn off the television, make some better choices about what we read on the Web and maybe exhale through some of the vitriol, we’d all be a lot freer. And I don’t give a fig whether you buy organic or not. There’ll always be a McNugget for someone. And hey, I grow my own. I’d be happy to sell you one out of the back of my big ol’ SUV.

Use It or Lose It

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Oct 312010

THE KITCHEN THERAPIST

By MICHELE NIESEN

When I was in my 20s, I thought the decoration vibe of my apartment was the most important thing in the world. I couldn’t wait to take people back to my place. It said something about me. I was the kind of person who liked chaise lounges and large Art Deco dogs placed just so in the corner to let you know that I had a nod to another generation (Eurotrash mysterious). You could keep your tailgate parties and chicken wings. I had a cordon bleu in the oven!

Inside a pale armoire, I keep a collection of China with the piece d’resistance—a Limoges tea set: white with black polka dots and a spout of gold and matching lid handle; six cups with matching dessert plates.

I moved that tea set around for 25 years and never made tea in that pot. Ever. I packed it. Worried about it. Unwrapped it. Never touched it. I had lost cups to clumsy maintenance men knocking over a shelf, a shoddy packing job, dropped plates and other things that happen in life to shorten the cache of a full set. Now incomplete, and because I don’t have things like armoires to display things anymore, it was relegated to a cabinet.

Today while making tea, I thought, I always boil water on the stove and pour it into an old pickle jar or something. Suitable but definitely not haute. And then I thought, Why don’t I use a tea pot? I’m not camping for cryin’ out loud. Let’s class it up.

Dusty and sitting on a shelf it was. Aha. Fear made me put that there. Hoard. Worry. No pets in the apartment because they might ruin it. Slip covers. Dress-up clothes. What are we waiting for? A life that may never come? Guests who may not visit? Money that we may not live to enjoy? Pfft.

Use it. Enjoy it. Spend it. Hug on somebody just because. Bring the tea pot in the tub with the dog. Whatever.

Living in nature with all these animals (wild and otherwise) and seeing these cycles of life and death daily is showing me that everything is fragile. Not just some silly French teapot. We worry about protecting things more than touching lives. Something seems fuzzy about that picture.

So what’s it gonna be—safe and miserable? Or open and happy? I for one am letting go of fear and am going to enjoy a very civilized cup of tea. It makes me giggle to think that I used to care about labels. Notably when I tip the pot upside-down, the Limoges imprint that was supposed to make this pot so valuable is barely readable. Or maybe I just can’t see it anymore.