Instead I’ll tell you what capped my terribly awful mood, what sent all of the little things that chafed against each other to create my mood, over (as they say) the edge.  The edge.  Over the edge of all moods, here it is. 

Can you see it?  It’s not a good picture.  First of all, it was 12 times bigger than that.  And 52 times as creepy.  So instead of the picture, just think of your own version of terror.  It might be scorpions, birds, date nights with your wife, whatever thing makes your heart stop and skin go clammy and internal organs leap out of your mouth.  Think of something that scares you enough to do that. 

So.  “Hi my name’s Teresa and I’m scared of bugs,” I have entomophobia.  It’s a condition.  I’m not just ‘shoo bug’ scared, but frightened, terrified.  More even than the first time I watched Jaws, I feel more fear in the presence of a bug than when Jaws bit off that guy’s leg.

This particular bug, the one pictured, appears for an entire chapter of The Good Wife.  A short chapter, but still.  So perhaps the appearance of it in my kitchen was a sign.  I thought that the chapter was done, but perhaps Ernest Hemingway’s doting soul sent me a scary bug to tell me it needs work.

Regardless.  I have managed, despite my condition, to lead a fairly normal and productive life, with the help of medication (vodka) and therapy (complaining to A.)

But this mosquito, the big one … the Elephant mosquito, let’s call it.  The one everyone says, “oh, those are the harmless kind, those ones won’t hurt you,” this particular bug I haven’t made peace with.  I still have visible terror.  And he came today, to my kitchen, and I threw magazines at the wall until I maimed him enough so that it was safe to get close up and kill him.  And squash his guts. 

Right before I did, I swear I saw something in his teeth.  He was that big.

At times like this I read cookbooks, they comfort me.  So I’m right now reading Alice Waters’ “Chez Panisse: Vegetables.”  There is a lovely paragraph on page 16 about grilling asparagus and it makes me want to tell A. to come home and “prepare a wood fire in the grill” right now, then grill asparagus. 

If you want to come home A., and grill asparagus with me, that would be nice.  I’ve disposed of the scary dead bug. 

I lost a document.  I can’t find it, it’s gone, there’s no recovered this or that, no scrap nor morsel of it.  And no one heard at all, not even the chair.

It was mornings like this that made Hemingway drink.  He didn’t have Word 2007 to contend with, but Hadley once left an entire manuscript he’d asked her to bring him, on the train.  The entire thing.  She was in France going to meet him in Spain.  No one found it.

My little lost document, in comparison, is small potatoes.  Still.  It’s no way to start a Monday.

A. and I made an omelette together yesterday.  Simply, like Alice says.  I chopped up some chervil and thyme and parsley and we mixed it in with the eggs and salt and pepper.  A. did the skillet work.  Gruyere cheese went in just before he folded it over.  It was delightful to cook with A., and then eat at the table together something so simple and lovely as an omelette.   

The aioli, however, haunts me like a lost document. 

If you want to tell me to “hang in there”, click here.

Anyhoo.  The expected challenges rear up – lack of time, patience, farmer friends, and time.  I’ve also got a weak forearm.  You can’t make aioli with my forearm, you need a bionic one.  You need a bionic forearm to do almost everything Alice says should be done with a whisk, or a mortar and pestle.  A. likes to whisk, and he has a strong forearm (stop giggling, pervos!) but A.’s not here all day.  He’s not here until 6 and by 6:00 I need to have kneaded and whisked and braised and pounded and roasted everything already.

Last night was big.  It didn’t go perfectly smooth, I made both kids cry, but I still checked the win column. 

I roasted a locally grown chicken.  I don’t know the guy who raised or killed the chicken, but it had a stamp on its neck at Roth’s — “locally grown”.  I also don’t know what the chicken ate while it was alive, but I’ll get there.  I didn’t have it all seasoned the day before roasting it, but Alice wasn’t completely adament on that, she just suggested.  I did loosen the skin to stick in thyme sprigs and garlic, and I DO know the farmer who grew the garlic!  Heh, heh.  I not only know her, I drank wine with her on Sunday.  I sang ”Happy Birthday” to her husband! 

Back to the chicken.  I haven’t roasted one in 10 years — why the hell would I when they’re sitting beneath the warmer, for five bucks, at Safeway?  So while you might be Ina Garten and roast three a day, for me, on a Thursday, it was a stretch. 

There were sweet potatoes — unknown organic farmer, but they’re in season and full of vitamins.  I microwaved them (bad), had the kids scoop out the flesh (good), added some milk (unknown dairy), butter (local), pureed garlic (see above) and had the kids take turn mashing them up (good). 

Then we made some polenta, according to Art of Simple Food (good), with a little salt and some parmesan cheese, and I sliced up the brussels sprouts from my CSA box this week (good), sauteed them with bacon (pig’s place of birth unknown) and voila, my sides.  I roasted the chicken, somehow, exactly perfect.  A. even thought it was store-bought – his highest form of compliment!  And I made a five-second simple gravy from the “juices in the pan”. 

The kids ate the bread and the bacon. 

I’m having serious problems with my aioli, however, and there will be more on that later. 

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What else?  Oh yeah, it’s Irma Rombauer’s birthday, she wrote The Joy of Cooking.  Irma was, by her own admission, a terrible cook.  Her book catered to women with few cooking skills, and her recipes included convenience ingredients — canned soup, for crying out loud!  Alice Waters would never stand for it.  She of the Know-Your-Farmer-and-Pet-the-Chickens school of people who have time to stroll around all day watching their food grow.  That Alice.

Alice, Alice, Alice.  I’m not making fun of her, though I should.  Her ideals should be a little precious for my taste, but they’re not.  I love her!  I don’t want to, but I do, I really do!  I’ve read Chez Panisse: Vegetables inside and out, then inside again, to the point where presented with kale and german butter potatoes last week in my CSA box, I nonchalantly turned out a lovely pot of potato-kale soup.  Now I’m reading The Art of Simple Food, which I predict will be my generation’s J. of C.  If Alice is not widely acknowledged as iconic, she will be.  I’m frightening the hell out of A. and the kids by threatening an experiment where we live Alice’s way for a year.  G.’s reaction to dinner last night, however, gives me pause.

A. had the equally brilliant, and more manageable, idea of eating out of cans for a year.  Every meal on the table must be derived from a can or a box, both recyclable.  Maybe we’ll flip a coin.