Spending time in Nutrition Land

 I’m ill, and have been for the past week or so, and have spent almost every waking moment that I haven’t been at work glued to my parents couch watching CSI, and Law and Order marathons on TV. What is it about being sick that makes us yearn for our parents to take care of us? Almost everyone I know, wants their mom to take care of them when they are sick, and I am no different. Sadly for me my mom is not a nurturing as I would like her to be in this respect. Let me just say for the record, that my mom is fabulous. She is an excellent care-taker, and she tries incredibly hard. That being said, I totally get where she comes from. I am not a huge fan of children, especially loud, whiney sniffling children, so I can only imagine how she feels when a twenty-four-year-old child shows up on her couch, wallowing in self-pity, carrying around a box of Kleenex. She will gladly give me a bottle of Musinex, make me a cup of tea, and once in a while if I look pathetic enough she will rub Vics on my feet, but other than that she is pretty much hands off when it comes to me recovering from illness. (this of course doesn’t count last summer when I had a staph infection, and she essentially took care of me 24-7 for 3 weeks) She gladly provides me with a place to wallow though, and thankfully that place is mere feet away from her kitchen.

I can honestly say that my mother’s kitchen is a magical place, especially when compared with my rather pathetic kitchen. I hate my kitchen, though I’m trying to work on that… but it has indoor/outdoor carpet, a ghetto stove, and very little storage space. It also doesn’t have a dishwasher… though this is not new to me, I haven’t had a dishwasher for about two years, I especially hate my kitchen when I am sick. I lay on the couch thinking about making something like soup, and then I think about all the dishes that will result, and I usually give up before I even start.

My mother’s kitchen on the other hand, seems to be fully-stocked all the time, has every pot, pan, or gadget that I could ever need/want/use, and yes, there is a dishwasher to take care of all the unsightly mess afterward. Though she might not be willing to make me chicken soup, I at least know that all of the ingredients are tucked away somewhere so if I’m motivated I can make it for myself. And I usually do, or I make something else, because lets face it, there are only so many hours you can spend on the couch with a book, and the tv to keep you company. I’m a pretty active person, and so sitting around day after day starts to drive me crazy really quickly.  I want to go for a run, and do some yoga, but neither one really go hand in hand with the amount of snot that has been coming out of my nose, and so I turn to less strenuous, and less inverted activities. And so after about 3 days of being a couch potato, I start cooking ( I know, snot probably doesn’t go with cooking either, but when you are cooking for yourself who cares? ).

Growing up I never really realized how fantastic my mom’s kitchen was. Now that I am on a fixed income, and don’t have much pantry space to speak of, I am totally enamored by the amount of ingredients that are always on hand at my parents house. The pantry is stocked with grains like barley, lentils, quinoa, whole grain pasta, beans, etc. There are always salad makings, spices galore, fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, sauces, milk, coffee, wine, beer, not to mention baking supplies. Last night, when my restlessness got me off the couch, I was thrilled to find that she had virtually all the ingredients for stuffed bell-peppers, creamed spinach, and an impromptu apricot thyme galette.

Now that I’m an adult, I have really started to appreciate the way that I was brought up, and the eating habits that were instilled by my parents. I never realized how special it was that our cookies and pancakes were always made from scratch, salad never came out of a bag, and white bread was never in the pantry. My brother is and always has been more of a picky eater than I am, and so looking back on our childhood the fact that his favorite food of all time is spinach quiche, and his favorite vegetable is brussle sprouts really speaks for our childhood eating habits.  I’ve had relatives tell me stories about watching me sitting in a stroller, being rolled around an amusement park eating broccoli trees. Though I will be the first to admit that my childhood eating habits may not have been the most “normal” (I hated pizza until I was in high school) I didn’t really realize how “abnormal” healthy eating was until I was a sophomore in college. One of my good friends came home with me during a break, and when we got back she told her parents that my house was like “nutrition-land”. She was amazed that there were always almonds and dried fruit on the counter for snacking, there was always a salad at dinner, and water and milk were our typical beverages.

And I’m so glad that my culinary experimentation and healthy eating habits have carried into my adulthood.  Yes, I do like junk food, in fact I’m eating left-over pizza for lunch as I write this, but for the most part, my food tastes and cravings tend to be on the healthy-ish side, and for that I am eternally grateful.