I know I’m a good cook but no-one has called my ten-minute lasagna (recipe on this site) sublime, before now.
Dear neighbors of five years moved last week, several blocks away. I made them a dinner they could pop in the oven and be sustained when they were exhausted from unpacking boxes.
So, I got a call telling me my dish was “sublime” and that they’d had it twice. Well, it did weigh a couple of pounds. We walked to see their new home and gave them the dish.
They offered us a teachers’ desk from a nunnery. It is gorgeous, old, oak and my husband fought it. I’ve figured out how to get it.
My husband has come around, saying if I want this desk so badly, I should have it. The saddest thing is that I asked only to borrow the desk until the older couple has room for it. E said “you never go back.”
That is for my home(s) as well. I could try to tell you how many times I’ve moved in my entire lifetime but it wouldn’t be worth the effort. What we have, we move. I’ll replace a plastic foldable “suitcase” desk with my 1910 English oak gate leg table for my husband’s desk. That space with a view will have the nunnery desk and “altar to food.”
I don’t know that I’ll have much time or access to cook for my father, who just turned 85 and has cancer. We haven’t seen each other in a while but are solidifying plans to travel there in a couple of weeks. I’ve a few things of his here that are close to my heart.
Over 20 years ago Dad bought a pencil drawing of dancers that won a student award at a college for American art. He is now a founder of a dance company and has led one before he retired.
Three of his paintings (he took up painting at age 80) are beautifully framed and on our walls. I think of him every day. No, I see him in his art every day. When I take down the dog’s leash five times a day I see dance, Tuscany, and images of Aboriginal art.
As to the nunnery table, my father is Lutheran but was hired as president of a Catholic college with much vitriol. Then he went to a Protestant place as president and received hate mail about my mother, who was Catholic. So now we’ll have a nunnery desk. What goes around, comes around.
Around age seven my little sister and I left school every week to go to CCD, Catholic doctrine taught by nuns, you know, joyful and sorrowful mysteries to memorize. One day the Sister passed out envelopes from St. Joseph’s, 52 weeks, with our names on them so they knew we went to Mass there every week and could count our donations.
My sister declined, several times. Sister finally asked why. My little sister said “we go to St. Matthews.” Have you ever seen a nun looking like a deer in the headlights? A seven year-old girl sent her there.
I do think we know where the nun’s teaching table will be placed. Now, I must alter this altar to food to include a trip to the hardware store for a proper ruler, just in case there are errant students who need discipline. This is a long one, but worthwhile, Dee
Cooking with Dee 