Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Becoming Edith Bunker


With holiday cooking in work or at least in planning stages, we may wish to review some of our domestic habits that become a tradition when done for two or more years consecutively during a holiday season. This being said, I have been having flashbacks to a particular episode of All In The Family featuring Edith Bunker and her son-in-law Mike. In this episode, and I paraphrase…

Edith is reading a magazine and Mike is watching TV, both are in the living room. Edith’s timer goes off in her apron pocket.
 Mike, looking around says “Ma, do you have something in the oven?”
“Yeeeeessss!” in her usual shrill voice.
“Aren’t you going to check on it now that the timer has gone off?” he asks.
“No.” she replies. “I have five minutes to do that.”
“Huh? How do you figure that?”
“She explains that “I don’t want to start anything new in the next five minutes that will keep me from taking the cake out of the oven when it’s ready, so I set my timer five minutes ahead.”
You can tell by the look on Mike’s face that a major brain cramp is setting in. “What?” he says. She explains it again as he shakes his head like Bugs Bunny.

Now this is where I come in. I recently found myself setting a timer for what might be the first time ever while cooking, for the sole purpose of staying in the kitchen, in order to NOT start another multi-tasking project at dinner time, so I would be prepared to take something out of the oven. WHAT?!!! That’s what I said and I was the one doing it! And if you think that was one long run-on sentence, then you should have been there for my brain cramp at the realization that I had indeed become Edith Bunker!


What a moment! Now, I have to spend my conscious cooking time de-programming myself from the Edith Bunker Syndrome. Should I set my timer 10 minutes ahead instead of five? Should I not use a timer at all and just stare at the clock? It’s a conundrum I tell you. And when did all this happen? I haven’t a clue. One day it was just there. Now I must get rid of it.

I think I’ll just order take out. There, it’s settled. Now where’s the menu?

Cathy

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