Who’s Got Supper for Five Tonight?

It was just plain irresponsible for me to pretend that I still had a blog during the past couple of months. But wait…it’s still here and so are you, I hope.

School’s out now and, hot as it is outside, I feel as if I’m taking a cool swim even when I’m not. Relief washes over me– enough relief so that I can see one of the many Covid-19 contrasts coming clearly into focus.

Rarely has there been a time when we were more aware of the gravity of news from the outside while being so completely hunkered into our own domestic existences, with their particular kind of rhythms.

It has been, in a way, the quotidian set against the monumental — with many of the actual monuments across the land coming down.

I daresay I am among many who will look back on this time as, on the one hand, a mind-boggling pandemic-within-a-pandemic; and on the other hand, a stretch of many, many, many home-cooked suppers, with everyone in residence coming to the table, appreciating the efforts of the person(s) who at some point went out to shop, as well as the person(s) who stepped up to cook on that particular evening, knowing that clean-up would be everyone else’s duty. In a completely abnormal time, the normalcy and regularity of meal preparation stood out.

For about a month, we were a full family of five here, with four of us dealing with the regular — no, not regular at all — responsibilities of jobs or school, and the fifth, arriving last after finishing something big, able to be of service to the rest of us. He too, though, needed at least a quasi-private spot to Zoom. At least our computer-free dog could be counted upon to be quiet, wherever he was.

Each in our separate stations by day, the kitchen (renovated, just in time) and then the dining room table drew us together each evening. With no outside commitments pulling any of us elsewhere, mindful of the unceasing labors of essential workers everywhere, here we all were again, as dusk fell– ready to eat.

It took a couple of weeks for me to settle in to the normalcy of seeing three mostly grown kids moving about in the kitchen. Sometimes they were at the stove, cookbook out:

Other times, thanks to our new but not-yet-complete island, they were pausing to show each other something:

But then, back to cooking, they showed pride in their results:

Some of us, led by a certain kitchen influencer, expanded our culinary horizons significantly, with many meals featuring “tempeh”– something that didn’t appear at all during toddler or teenage years. Turns out, it– like tofu– can take on an array of different flavors, depending on what you happen to have around: tomatoes, curry, peanut or barbecue sauce. Go wild!

Once, I boldly brought up that subject of past meals, the ones that were served primarily by me, the mother figure, at two other previous kitchen counters. “What do you guys mostly remember about our suppers years ago?” I breezily asked, counting on replies to be delivered with nostalgia, kindness. “Those frozen chicken pieces in a red bag!” and “TATER TOTS!” came back at me, more like stinging retorts than gentle memories. “Whadd’ya mean..there were plenty of vegetables, too!” Then a pause, with two kids looking at one another, before an acknowledgement that yes, the salads were not memorable, but there was a hazy recollection of greenness.

One of the other vegetarian items that was prominent in an especially tasty recipe that mimicked beef and broccoli came in this interesting package:

When the bishop came upstairs from his basement lair and glanced at this, he was at first taken aback by the similarity of the word to the name of that serpent who is up to no good in the Bible.

Whatever the supper turned out to be, though, we were not only ready for it but also ready to trade stories from the day that we had spent in very close quarters, except for — thank goodness– runs or rows or bike rides or roller blade excursions. Not a day went by without each of us recognizing that we were so fortunate to be able to talk about the news that we heard or read or saw from some safe distance. “Safe” and “distance” — two words we all heard so much more than usual.

Two-fifths of us have moved on now, but the nourishment provided by all of those joint endeavors– otherwise known as “family meals” — will go on for a long time.