Swampwater Debutante

Sorry for silence. I’ve actually been making a minor effort to tidy up around here in preparation for moving into a smaller apartment in a few months. Decluttering is an exhausting thing, and I am taking it one step at a time.

I hadn’t had any plans to do it any time soon - because I am hopelessly lazy - but you guys, I think after nearly two years my therapist has cottoned on to how to make me do things I might not normally want to do: she dared me to clean out my upstairs garb closet, then slyly implied I’d never do it, and then accused me of resisting change to boot. That same day - with an additional fire of rage lit under my ass by a male friend behaving in an entirely reprehensibly MALE and unethical manner as regards sexual matters - I had that closet cleaned out. The next day, I had the bigger upstairs clothing closet organized, too. Today I put away all the books and CD’s that had been scattered around my bedroom, and every night I have cooked dinner, or baked cookies, and washed dishes.

I am scaring me, too. Do not worry.

Dinner the last few nights have been good veggie dishes, made with fresh stuff from the Farmer’s Market. All that being virtuous tends to get to me by Thursday, so tonight I stopped at the store for a box of shells and cheese. Don’t judge. I have been really good.

While there, I stopped in the baking goods aisle, thinking I would pick up some plain chocolate chips. But I saw some Andes mint chips, too. So I picked up one bag of each, weighing them in my hand as I tried to decide which to get.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

I looked up and around to see this girl, well, early to mid-twenties young lady. Whatever. She was definitely an adult, not a teenager, I can tell you that much. She was also looking at me pleasantly, if slightly desperately.

“Yes?”

“Do you…” she gestured towards the wall of baking supplies, “cook?”

I bit back my smartass urge to make some comparison involving frog’s asses and the water-tightness thereof, and let me tell you how hard that was: very. But I did it because I do try to pretend sometimes that I am a decent human being, and she seemed nice. “I do a bit, sure. What’s up?”

“What do they mean in recipes when they say, cream whip?”

I paused with my hand dangling over a bag of Ghirardelli chocolate chips. “Cream whip?” I asked blankly.

“Yes, I think that’s what it said.” She looked wretched at her inability to recall the recipe correctly. Fortunately for her, I always have to fill in blanks and solve riddles and interpret odd things from customers looking to book hotel rooms with me. It did not take long for inspiration to strike.

“Do you mean heavy whipping cream?”

Her face lit up. “Yes!”

“Oh, that’s in dairy, it’s refrigerated, come follow me.” And we scampered to dairy, with her burbling happily that she never really cooks and she would never have figured this out. It was kind of cute. You are thinking I should be really mean about her not being able to figure out that heavy whipping cream was in the dairy section, but come on. Up until a month ago I had never even bought the stuff myself, much less used it in a recipe. Also? Earlier this week I failed utterly to find a can of french fried onion scraps because I had no idea where to find them (it turns out they are by the ethnic foods. no, I don’t know either). So it is not for me to judge.

We got the cream, eventually, not without a minor kerfuffle about whether the recipe - for a gelatin and fruit salad - called for pre-packaged whipped cream (no, and even if it had called for whipped cream and not whipping cream she decided she could jolly well figure out how to whip the whipping cream. good girl). But we got it, and the little fledgling cook was on her way.

“Thank you! I couldn’t have figured this out!”

I smiled, waved, and went back to the baking aisle. I grabbed one bag each of chocolate chips and mint chips. Tomorrow is going to be epic.