Erma on Cooking

I love Erma Bombeck. She was truly an every-woman humorist. I love reading her takes on the day-to-day things of life, as she always knew how to see the funny in them. On occasion, I will share Erma quotes with you on this blog. Like today.

Today’s Erma-ism:

“When it comes to cooking, five years ago I felt guilty ‘just adding water.’ Now I want to bang the tube against the countertop and have a five-course meal pop out. If it comes with plastic silverware and a plate that self-destructs, all the better.”

Ain’t that the truth? Instant food, although not great for one’s health, is a busy mom’s best friend. If I had to cook everything from scratch, I fear my family would die of starvation. It’s not that I can’t cook, it’s that anything that takes more than 15 minutes or involves more than one course is asking for trouble. It’s hard enough to get a boxed side dish and a canned vegetable heated up without Monkey Boy getting into the raw ground beef that’s sitting in the skillet waiting to be browned.

It’s those convenience foods, like the biscuits in a tube that save my sorry gourmet-challenged butt.

The Man can’t stand those tubes. That “pop” noise that happens when the can is being opened freaks him out. Even if steak and lobster were popping out of that can, he wouldn’t want to be around for the unveiling. He leaves the job to me, the mighty can-hunter. Me kill biscuits.

I think Erma was on to something with those self-destructing plates. No washing dishes. What is it about my guys that they don’t rinse off their plates when they’re done eating? Don’t they know that not rinsing makes it exponentially harder to clean the gunk off the dishes later? I suppose I should be thankful that the dishes make it to the sink at all. Monkey Boy is learning to throw away what’s left on his plate when he’s finished, and sometimes the plate lands in the trash, too. That’s OK. He’s making progress. At least it’s off the table!

Maybe it’s time to make DSguy wash the dishes. We tried that once. He was a dishwasher with three speeds—slow, slower, and stop. I might be better off waiting for self-destructing plates to be invented. Either way, I’ll have a long wait on my hands.