Maybe it’s just being in my 40’s that has turned me this way,
but making food for people has become more of an annoyance than a passion like it was in the old days.
It’s just that dinner has to happen SO MUCH.
Every day seems excessive, no?
I can’t seem to keep up.
When Justin and I were first married I had books worth of worn, saved recipes,
and I loved to work for hours, baking and crafting; pouring my heart out into loving my people with food.
Back then parties I threw were fancier, and I’d work for days making sure every detail was perfect;
But, through the years, the passion slowly faded until now what I’m passionate about is how fast it can be over and done.
Maybe it’s just been all the other things that have had to get done now that there are 4 kids in the mix, and homeschooling, and all the driving, and appointments and such.
Maybe it’s been the years of doing daycare, and the endless string of chopping, cutting, pouring, and passing out of things.
My daycare girl, Linnae, recently told me,
“Kerri, if you want to know how many snacks it will take to make me all the way full, the answer is
ALL OF THEM.”
Maybe it has been the last 9 years with my youngest, Detester of Dinner, with critiques that would only make Gordon Ramsey’s lips curl in a smile.
Or maybe I ruined my husband by expanding his palette in the first place.
He started off 18 years ago only really eating 3 things, and I had to go and mess with it.
It’s my fault he discovered the wonders of curry, and sushi, and all kids of other worldly things.
If I’d known then how much nicer it would feel to only have a three thing rotation, I would have never pushed him towards such growth.
I would have tossed him a microwaved burrito and left well enough alone.
Maybe it’s the way he likes to ask if I can “help him with a sandwich” lately,
and how I know that “help” means make it for him by myself and then hand it to him.
But now I am just tired.
I am tired of peeling, chopping, slicing, searing, steaming, rinsing and every thinking of food.
I am irritated that it is an everyday occurrence to have to feed this crew.
I am tired of being a vegetable pusher, and of counting the bites.
I just want it over
and I want it over tonight.
For Christmas my mom bought me an Instant Pot.
Upon opening it, the thought of having a gadget that could cook something from frozen in under and hour was so glorious,
but that same mother, grinning at me, waiting to see what I thought of her gift, seemed to have forgotten that she raised me on a solid helping of her own irrational fears.
Sure, she’s gotten over a lot of them now, herself, but I still remember hearing about pressure cookers exploding and killing entire families, so to never mess with them;
And she cannot really look at me sideways.
This is the same woman that microwaves all meat even after it has registered that it is done on a meat thermometer, because one can never mess around with food-bourne pathogens.
She once had to go to physical therapy for chewing such hard, dried-out things.
After Christmas, my mom went back home and that Instant Pot sat mocking me in its giant box.
I had nowhere to put it in this small house, so it just sat on the kitchen floor,
jeering with its very presence, “I bet you never will.”
I had to move it with my foot every time I opened the pantry door.
Every night for a month as I groaned and tried to think of what to cook, I’d look over at that box and almost hear it laughing at me asking if it might, perhaps, interest me in some deliciously moist, rapidly cooked chicken,
or if I’d just rather continue BEING a chicken, myself.
I was positive the only thing that was going to get me to use that thing was if my lack of energy over cooking ever became more powerful than my fear of dying from it.
And it did.
One night, in a brave moment, I removed it from its box.
I would not be conquered by a glorified crock pot!
I opened the manual and made it an Odyssey-length in when I decided I didn’t have time to cook anything in it now that I’d been reading so long if I wanted dinner anytime before 9pm.
That night I fried chicken breasts on the stove right NEXT to the Instant Pot, that I *think* I saw shaking its head at me in disappointment.
But,
baby steps to the Instant Pot,
in the end, three days of build-up and an in-person tutorial by my adult daughter is what it took to help me build up the courage to use it.
I set it, screamed that no one was to step foot in the kitchen, not even the cats, stressed over the creaking of the house from the wind, and then took the kids on a drive, and left my husband sleeping on the couch.
(A fact I have since heard protests from him about)
But before you get excited and start sending me your tried and true Instant Pot recipes, thinking I’m a starry-eyed convert, please know I’m still not excited about cooking a solitary thing.
Maybe the passion will return,
but maybe not.
I will not be making things like Tri-Color Instant Pot Cheesecake.
I’m still bitter I even have to think about what to dump in a pot. Do not rush me here.
There has to be someone else out there like me.
The passion used to be there, and I am actually a very good cook;
I just do not want to do it anymore, but these people will not free me.
Even as I have typed they have asked me for food.
#freekerrigreen
It’s a movement.
Here’s a pen and a poster board.
March or something.
Three nights ago, I stood folding clothes when our home phone rang, surprising us all.
No one actually CALLS us anymore.
Especially not at NIGHT.
Night calls mean danger, and emergencies.
My husband picked up, and kind of laughed a bit, and then said,
“I’ll go get her,” and came walking down the hall holding the phone out to me.
“It’s Sean,” he said.
(My daycare kids’ dad)
Why was he was calling?
Was something wrong with the kids?
When I said hello, I heard on the other end a thing I will probably never forget for as long as I live.
“Kerrrrrrrri,” he kind of moaned.
“I’m at that Thai place you like.
I’m looking at the menu and I cannot decide.”
It started to sink in as next
“Tell me what to eeeaaaaaattttttt,” is what he whimpered out.
So, brief recap,
I now I have not one, but TWO men asking for my help with their food.
I took one step forward, and then got carried back two.
For Christmas this year I’m about to be like Oprah,
so check under your chair.
“You get an Instant Pot! And YOU get an Instant Pot!
Every person’s got one?
Good.
Now YOU figure out something to throw in there.”
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
