Weekend Cooking: *A Tale of Two Marthas*

A few weeks ago I told you about my favorite cooking magazine, Martha Stewart Everyday Food.  Some of my favorite go-to recipes are found between its pages and on the website.

 This little monthly is worlds away from Martha Stewart Living, with which I had a brief, but passionate affair.  It was all one-sided, Livingled me on, teasing me with pretty baubles, and encouraging me to try things I just wasn’t ready for.  It took a while, but after one last disastrous date, I decided that I’m just not that kind of a girl … let me explain.

I’ll set the scene with the date, June 1996.  Our firstborn was one month old, and I was both sleep-deprived and wacked out with postpartum mood swings.  Good times.

One afternoon, after a month of casseroles from neighbors, grab-and-go from the grocery store, take-out meals, and quick sandwiches made at home, I decided to take control of the kitchen by preparing a home-cooked meal.

What looked good?  I flipped through the May issue of Martha Stewart Living and came up with Moo Shu Pork with Plum Sauce and Curry Scented Pancakes.  Alarm bells should have been ringing in my head, right?  Aside from adding cold milk to my Cheerios in the morning, my culinary adventures of the past month didn’t stray much further than boiling water for pasta. 

But, there I was, strapping our infant into her car seat for a trip to the grocery store; squeaky toy in one hand, shopping list in the other, I was ready to take on the world … or, at least, Wegmans.  And what a shopping list it was, with lots of items I didn’t happen to have on hand – curry powder, sesame seeds (my spice cabinet was also in its infancy.  For those who may have missed it, I’m including of pic of it now that it’s reached maturity), sesame oil, fresh ginger, etc.

Oh, another important part of the setting – we were living in Syracuse.  This is important because, 1. There was snow on the ground for my first Mother’s Day.  Kind of puts a damper on all those Hallmark greetings filled with Spring flowers! and, 2.  We shopped at Wegmans.  I loooooove Wegmans!  Stepping into that store I felt like Dorothy must have when she walked out of her recently airborne farmhouse and the word opened up in color before her.  Fresh produce!  Floral market! Made-to-order sandwiches! The scents of the bakery!  How can I help you?!  Have you found everything you need today?!  Paper or plastic!?

[an aside: Wegmans hasn't yet infiltrated the Massachusetts market, this is the land of "Stop and Shop."  We do, however, have more Trader Joe's than you can shake a stick at (as my mother would say).  So, when Beth Fish or Booking Mama tease me good-naturedly about their Wegmans, I send them a pic from my latest Trader Joe's outing.  It's all in good fun, of course.]

It was a happy ocassion, the new mom on an outing with her cute little bundle of sleeping joy.  Then, it happened. Eh-eh-ehhhh!  Eh-eh-ehhh! Ehhhh!  The sounds of an infant who has woken up hungry from her nap.  Shhh.  Shhh, it’s OK.  We’re almost done.  The sounds of a mother trying to choose between packages of pork tenderloin while calming her crying baby. 

And then, you guessed it, like Pavlov’s dogs reacting to the ringing of a bell … Oh, TMI?  Sorry.  I was glad I was wearing a coat, and I really needed to get home and nurse that baby!

An hour later around 3, with the baby fed and sleeping; I was ready to begin.  My plan was to do all the cutting, dicing, slicing prep work ahead of time, so I could …….  I had never before worked with fresh ginger, the “slivers” I cut ended up being more like matchsticks – really thick matchsticks.  When J and I finally sat down to eat we ended up pulling most of the ginger out of the moo shu (matchsticks of ginger are so pungent that they almost burn when you bite into them; yeah, and they’re really woody, too, impossible to chew – at least the way I prepared them!)

I started my chopping, my slicing, my dicing.  I began to measure flour and ginger, so I could prep the dry ingredients for the pancakes.  I was tired.  I was hungry.  And … the baby was hungry, too.  Where did that time go?  Two hours had passed while I arranged the ingredients on the counter and decided the best plan of attack for the ginger root.  I stepped away from the kitchen to calm my wailing child.

New mother pushing to prove she can do it all + month-old baby asserting her place as the center of my universe = recipe for disaster.

J came home from work two hours later.  I was in tears  – as was the baby, who refused to nurse.  I think she was put off by the scent of the ginger on my hands.  I scrubbed and scrubbed, but it had permeated my skin!  He took over in the kitchen while I tried to convince BabyBoo to eat.  What a disaster!

We sat down to dinner after 8, our combined attempt at Moo Shu Pork with Plum Sauce and Curry-Scented Pancakes on the plates before us.  J and I were both ravenous, and dug in with gusto (this would be when we discovered how intense and woody the ginger root was).  Never again, I vowed.  Never again, J echoed.  We entered the phone number for Rong Cheng on our speed dial, and didn’t look back (that was always fun, they’d answer the phone “Rong Cheng!” and make you wonder what the number for the Right Cheng was).

Now, I know it’s not Martha’s fault that I decided to tackle a rather involved recipe at such an inopportune time.  I should have known my limits and not been tempted by the glossy photos, the mouth-watering descriptions, and artist food styling.  But, there you have it, a certified culinary disaster.  I know my limits now, and stick to Martha Stewart Everyday Food.

“It’s a good thing.”

See what else is happening in the kitchens of the blogosphere this weekend.  Check out Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking to find links to other food-related posts.  There may be book reviews, recipes, kitchen gadget tips and tricks … or other tales of culinary woe.