Wednesday, November 26, 2003

The King is Dead, Long Live the Queen!

The inevitable happened and who can blame her, really.

Year after year listening to the former Trader Vic's barbeque chef critique the "tookey" prepared annually by his son as being "too dry" or the smashed, not mashed potatoes not being smooth and creamy enough like it used to be prepared in the Army by him for an entire battalion. And the weak culinary excuse of "it's supposed to be that way" for the lumpy consistency of viscuous gravy.

So no more willy-nilly recipes concocted from memory or wildly creative interpretations of tried and true traditions or slipshod, half-ass stop-and-go cooking just to catch the latest replay from the football game because the lady of the house now demands precision, exact measurements. "Follow the directions, actually read those cookbooks stuffed away up in the cabinets behind the cans of Van De Camps baked beans (that taste so damn good alongside a frankfurter, i.e., weiner sans the bun) AND FOCUS...stop going off on tangents being easily distracted while the food burns!" she commands. Those days of laissez-faire holiday meals belong to the distant past as sadly, meekly and humbly I relinquish the spatula.

Tomorrow the wife dons the toque, assuming all responsibility to roast the bird as well as all the fixings. The king is dead, long live the queen!