I don't cook. My mother didn't cook. My daughter doesn't cook.
When I met my husband, I refused to invite him home for Passover because I was embarrassed my mother might serve all the catered dishes in the wrong order. First, the dessert, then the bitter herbs, then the matzo ball soup -- you get the idea. Ken thought I was inviting another boyfriend to the Seder.
That was twenty years ago.
My family of origin used to have a Seder out of Alice in Wonderland. All we needed was a dormouse, falling into the teapot.
Now that my darling father is five years dead and my 96-year-old mother doesn't remember what a Seder is, I miss it.
It was utter chaos. My father would begin with good intentions, reading a Hagaddah which came with Barton's Chocolates or Manishewitz Wines -- but a riot soon ensued. The food came out in the wrong order; nobody remembered that everything had to be kosher and the party broke up when the Red Queen, my mother, shouted "Off with his head!" at my father -- and he went off to play Rodgers and Hart songs on his beloved Steinway.
Thanksgiving was different. We always went to the Tavern on the Green. There, my father and mother had to pretend to be civilized, my maternal grandparents (from Russia) had to pretend not to tell my parents what to do, my older sister had to dress up in her best and not tear my hair out, nor pop the buttons on my dressy blouse for spite, and my younger sister had to refrain from getting a migraine or scream "Tighter! Tighter!" as we tied the sash of her dress.
My late aunt Kitty was invited as long as she was with her husband, Dayton. When she plighted her troth to a woman partner, she was no longer invited.
"Poor Kittinka," my grandmother would say, "Why didn't you invite her?"
Because she was in Fire Island having a much better time with her friends. But we never said that to Mama and Papa. Our parents were Eda and Seymour. They were older, crazier siblings. I thought everybody lived like that.
Ah Thanksgiving. We never said grace, never gave to the needy and charged the whole thing to the family business. You could do that in the fifties. Personal expenses and business expenses were not separate -- as they are today. My father would take out a roll of cash and a stack of credit cards held together with a fat rubber band. No Goyard or Gucci wallets for him. He was from Brownsville. He never felt secure without at least $5000. In cash.
The family business took good care of us. Fancy restaurants, trips to Europe and Asia -- all legal then. We were allowed to charge books at Doubleday's but not dresses at Saks. No expense was spared for education -- though that was chaotic too.
I went to Music & Art (now LaGuardia) which was free, Barnard on a New York State scholarship -- the minimum amount because of my father's income. And my sisters went to Walden, New Lincoln, Barnard and NYU. When business was bad, they'd be pulled out of private school and when it was good, they'd be put back in. The family business was as chaotic as my family.
The family business gaveth and tooketh away. Some years it was steak, some years it was my grandmother's home cooked meals. I never learned her amazing recipes because I had to not cook to be free.
So I have always loved men who can cook -- which is fine with me.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I am grateful for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden et al, for my sisters still being alive to taunt me, for my mother being alive -- though without her memory, for my darling husband who cooks -- like his brother and sister, for my four adorable grandchildren, for my darling daughter, who doesn't cook.
Goddess Bless America.
I can cook in my next life.
This is why I enjoy Erica so much that I found her blog and joined! I am reading Fear of Fifty as I am about to be 50 in a couple of years and I know she will give me a wonderful perspective and keep my laughing and THINKING!
Cheers to you who don't cook and to those who love to! We need not be enemies...
And dad taught me how to change a flat, the oil, the transmission, how fix a toilet, a hot water heater, install wiring...how to grow my own food, how to use power tools -- how to drive a tractor, a baler, a combine, how to harvest. What's wrong with knowing how to cook? What's wrong with self-sufficency? The values I learned from my grandparents means I've never bought something I couldn't pay cash for. I've never had a credit card and just got my first cell phone this fall - it's prepay. I just don't think keeping these same ideas of the past will work with the kind of future we need to build.
I'm 28, and I wish my peers could have grown up with a few of the same values - or that the boomer generation remembered these values they were supposedly raised with..
Clearly most people take pride in being all of that. I'm sincerely impressed, but remain dubious of the overall concept. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.
I guess that sort of makes her point for her. I mean, what is so hard to get about a woman not wanting to be trapped in a role she isn't suited for? What's so hard to get about a time when women didn't have choices and were judged harshly for wanting to explore the world?
Ms Jong did a lot of important things for women; they were brave acts of courage and daring during their time. Her phrase about being free was not meant to be taken literally, for god's sake.
She's not saying she can't cook and be free. She was saying she felt like she couldn't cook and be free. In a way, this pokes fun at herself, but in another way it was probably accurate at the time. But I guess everyone here is above all of that -- are in fact, superwomen of Angelina Jolile status; saving orphans around the world, whilst cooking up a Thanksgiving and jetting round the world with international hottie and living life on great personal and professional achievement. Good for you, but give Ms. Jong a break, peeps!
Love the comments from men about women thinking their superior...Kind of missing Ms Jong's whole point, and you might want to read one of her books before posting such nonsense.
To me, not cooking for political reasons makes as little sense as not learning to type for fear of becoming a secretary. I also do my own plumbing for similar reasons, Better to know how to do stuff. Especially these days.
Most of the time, in my growing years, I refused to eat at holiday table - to be free. Later I cooked the holiday meals- to be attached to family and friends.
"I never learned her amazing recipes because I had to not cook to be free."
That sounds familiar.
My wife's mother (June de Toth) had to not type to be free.
She was coming of age in the fifties, and had she ever learned how to type, everyone would have expected her to become a secretary. As it was she had dreams of becoming a concert pianist. And she played at Carnegie Hall -- decades ago, taught piano for a fair number of years, now has more than a couple dozen CDs, and played at the Budapest centennial in Hungary for Bela Bartok. And yes: her husband does most of the cooking, as do I at my household, more or less.
Recipe please?
There's a photo from my sister's fifth birthday party with a very attractive birthday cake. I made it. I was eight. My mother didn't cook. She wasn't a bad cook, she didn't cook. She had a profession that used her brain and her creativity, but no paid cooks; my dad cooked for her—he’s a good cook but it's not his passion. My sister and I baked to fill in the gaps. None of us did crafts.
My mother didn’t cook, and then she did cook: in her mid-60’s, she learned to cook because she didn’t have to cook, and because my stepfather (who, like my father and her children, also cooked for her) asked her to. And she enjoyed it, and we all enjoyed her enjoyment, and there was no longer anything I could do that she couldn’t.
This year we’re doing a potluck at my dad’s house. My stepfather, his girlfriend, my stepmother’s kids…the whole family will be there. My stepmother does crafts. My daughter and my niece spent the night there last night, so they could get up early and make fancy place cards for everyone. My mom would have been so proud of them.