I Cook Because I Eat: Why Can’t Heroines Cook?

 Olivia Benson of Law & Order SVU prepares 

Salade Nicoise for herself and her son. He won't like the olives.  

I don’t understand why liberated heroines can’t cook. We need to eat, therefore, we need to cook. Eating fast food is not the answer. The more time you and your family spend in the kitchen cooking real food, the less time you and your family will spend at the doctor’s office and the hospital.

I'm a 50 year macro, wife and mother who cooks from scratch at least three times a day and has over 80 articles and 7 books to her name, plus I ran my own PR business for 10 years. (I started late in life.) I make it work. Why can't strong women heroines face up to the challenge of feeding themselves and their families?

I’m tired of that old feminist chestnut of “Oh! I can’t cook!” I get it, Simone de Beauvoir! It can be perceived as “endless drudgery and domestic slavery.” Wake up! Every person who told me that they couldn’t cook is - guess what? Dead! One woman, a minister, told me she wouldn’t even butter bread because it was too much like cooking. What do you think happened to her? She dropped dead in her driveway on her way to teach an aerobics class to heart patients.

Wake up! Every person who told me that they "couldn’t cook" is - guess what? Dead! 

Often, I’ll be watching - or trying to watch - a TV show about a female detective when suddenly her kid asks for breakfast or dinner and there’s no food in the house. “What?” she calls from gruesome files of dead victims, “What?” “There’s no food!” the child repeats. “I’ll go shopping after work.” Somehow, we know that’s not going to happen. I lose interest in the show.

Another one asks her son if his girlfriend’s fake breasts can make coffee. I’m thinking, are you seriously telling me you can’t make a cup of coffee for yourself - by yourself? You can solve crimes but you can’t boil water? Again, not going to watch it.

I tried to find one. I Googled TV detectives that cook. Lots of TV detectives. None cooking. I did get The Gourmet Detective. My heart skipped a beat. But, no, she’s the detective, he’s the professional gourmet come to lend a hand in the investigation.

Eliminating those fictional heroines who actually are chefs like Jane Adler (played by Meryl Streep) in It’s Complicated and Kate (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) in No Reservations, I found two who cook - one, Erica Barry, playwright, (played by Diane Keaton) in, aptly named, Something’s Gotta Give. She’s not intimidated by the kitchen. She can whip up breakfast, dinner, snacks, picnics at will or romantic midnight scrambled eggs for two when the electricity goes out. The other is Olivia Benson (played by Mariska Hartigay) of Law & Order Special Victims Unit. Olivia does not consider herself to be a very proficient cook, but she takes time out of her busy crime-solving, victim-soothing job, to bravely go where most TV detectives don’t dare to go, into the kitchen to make dinner when she and her son, Noah are hungry! Wow, what a concept!

I have found a few in real life.

Thinking back over literary history, I realized Emily Dickinson was the family baker. Her father insisted on only eating her bread because he liked it better than any other. Emily loved baking. She made cakes, cookies, candies and puddings. She often made treats for the local children, and because she was so reclusive, she would lower a basket full of cakes from her window to the children. Emily became quite famous in town for her baked goods. It was only after she died that her sister, Lavinia, found almost 2,000 poems that Emily had written, some of them started on the backs of recipes or random kitchen wrapping papers. Emily once said, “People must have puddings” and “Love’s oven is warm.”

Emily Dickinson

“I am going to learn to make bread to-morrow. So you may imagine me with my sleeves rolled up, mixing flour, milk, salaratus, etc., with a great deal of grace. I advise you if you don’t know how to make the staff of life to learn with dispatch.” 

                                                                    – Emily Dickinson to Abiah Root, September 25, 1845 (L8)

Emily Brontë

writer, poet, baker

Also, the Brontës - Charlotte was challenged by the kitchen, but Emily was something of a kitchen goddess, it seems. The village prized her bread over that of any other baker. She also cooked mutton as a common staple, turnips, potatoes and apple pudding. Oh, and she gave us the incomparable Wuthering Heights among other works, including lots of poetry. 

Jane Austen knew food.

Jane Austen’s household was humble and crowded with sisters, cousins, nephews, neighbors and friends. Many hands pitched in and Jane displays an intimate knowledge of many dishes in her work, often ascribing certain dishes to certain characters to make a point: “a pyramid of fruit which confronted Elizabeth Bennet at Pemberley…Or of the cold beef eaten by Willoughby on his journey of repentance to see Marianne.” (Maggie Lane) 

Okay, so I found some heroines that cooked and somehow managed at the same time to be superhuman in their work. If artists in real life can feed themselves and their families, why can’t fictional ones?

We all need to cook! Our health and the health of our families and our future as human beings depends on our ability to feed ourselves and keep ourselves well.

Even if you hate to cook, you still need to find a way to make meals successfully. I find that planning meals around brown rice really works for me - brown rice and broiled salmon with broccoli; brown rice and pinto beans with guacamole, tortillas and salad; brown rice and broiled chicken with potatoes and green beans, you get the idea. It’s quick, simple, tasty and nutritious.

Give me heroines who can feed themselves and their families good quality food! Do we have to go all the way back to Nancy Drew? She not only stopped the investigation for meals - she did the dishes too! And, might I add, still got her perp!

P.S. Laura of Garden Answer is a busy, professional gardener, mother and wife who stops work to cook meals for herself and her family; she tries to make a new recipe every week. 

Laura and her son making chicken curry with ingredients from her garden.

Here’s a list of busy professionals who love to cook - stars who cook!

 Also Gwyneth Paltrow and Emily Blunt (stars love her roasted potatoes!)

©Patricia Goodwin, 2022

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines. 

Pre-Pre Natal Care for Women and Men - Get Ready For Your Baby!

 

Did you know that childbirth is supposed to be an orgasm? No pain. Only ecstasy. 

This body that we nurture every day nurtures us back. We are stuck in it. And sometimes, it’s scary. But it doesn’t have to be.

I’ve written about health many times and it all boils down to something we all learned in school. Again, I’m saying it - it seems to me there are only two kinds of people in the world, those who paid attention in school and those who didn’t. Maybe you had a loser for a teacher and you coasted but you missed out on a lot that could be useful to you now. That loser had a lot to teach you.

In all of the pandemic, I only heard the WGBH Boston journalist, Adam Reilly* say what we all learned or should have learned in school (I’m paraphrasing) - “All you really need to do to strengthen your immune system and be healthy is to eat real nutritious food, get enough sleep and exercise.” 

That’s three things.

And, nobody does it.

I was lucky. I was brought up Italian, eating only whole foods from the Italian market in Haymarket Square, Boston. My grandfather and my uncle used to go every week and come home with wheels of cheese and hunks of prosciutto that the family shared. Every day was a fresh loaf of bread. Fresh fruits were abundant. My mother even foraged for dandelion greens. My grandmother grew her own arugula, tomatoes and red pepper in a tiny backyard garden in East Boston. 

My mother cautioned us to never eat anything from a factory! Candy was kept on a top shelf. Anything packaged was suspect.

I was thirty-one years old and eight years macrobiotic when my daughter was born. She popped out after only four hours of labor; she was pissing, pooping and screaming! I won’t say it was painless, it wasn’t. I did it without drugs and there comes a point, where, like Catholic saints, you pass the pain and drift into nothingness. 

Ecstasy.

But it’s not about pain or no pain. It’s about health.

A friend of mine delivered her ninth child herself behind the counter of her natural food store. Health.

Every time I see a commercial for children in a cancer ward, I shudder, because NO CHILD SHOULD HAVE CANCER! No, nor any other degenerative disease.

It is my opinion, and you can take it or leave it, that eating junk food as food causes cancer. “White bucket” fast food restaurants, where the ingredients come out of white plastic buckets instead of out of the garden or from the farm. Anything made in a factory - artificial “food-like substances” (Michael Pollan*, author, nutritionist and chef) that we eat as our daily food.

Feed yourself and your children real nutritious food! Everyone must learn how to cook! Every man, woman and, yes, every child as soon as they are able! 

Cooking is not an inconvenience. It is an opportunity. A chance to get better, to be better, to feel better!

NYC Mayor Eric Adams healed his diabetes and the blindness in his left eye 

by changing his diet 

What is good nutritious food? Here is the Food Pyramid we learned in school. It changes sometimes, but the basics remain the same. In macrobiotics, we lean more toward whole grains and vegetables with occasional servings of chicken, fish, dairy and eggs.

Here’s what to do for good pre-prenatal care and it’s the same for everyone’s everyday health. You don't have to be macrobiotic to be healthy! Get as close to this as you can!

Pre Pre Natal Care For Women and Men: Get Ready For Your Baby!

1. Learn to cook real whole foods. When you are a young adult (think high school!) stop all junk food as food. Junk food is a cheat meal, only for fun, not for food. Children cannot develop properly on a diet of sugary breakfast cereal, pizza and hot dogs. Not in life or in the womb - you must pre prepare for pregnancy to give your baby the best chance at health! 
2. No drugs, limit alcohol. 
3. Cut your sugar intake in half - or more!
4. Get enough sleep. This can be hard when you work and commute. But you must try.
5. Exercise. Keep your body as strong as possible. Keep your blood circulation pumping! Your own good quality blood made from good quality food is the best healing medicine for you!
6. Drink plenty of water! Water is the only drink that can truly hydrate you! Dehydration can sneak up on you.  It has many, many symptoms that can be dangerous!

Drugs, alcohol and sugar take from the body. Obviously, no hard drugs which can take your life as well as your baby’s life. Use other medications in moderation at all times. (Check with your doctor.) Nowadays women do not drink alcohol when pregnant. Many women also stop coffee. My mother never heard of these restrictions. I did drink coffee and everything was fine. I was advised by my European macro friends that European women drank good quality beer while pregnant to ensure plenty of breast milk. So, I drank the best beer I could find at the time, Pilsner Urquell. I had lots and lots of milk! I was also advised to eat a fermented soy product called natto for skin health. “No stretch marks,” commented the intern who cared for me. The doctor wouldn’t come down to the delivery. He said since it was my first, there was plenty of time. An intern and several nurses attended me. Initially, I had planned to use a mid-wife with doctor/hospital back-up. However, the doctor felt my hematocrit (number of red blood cells) was too low for mid-wife conditions. I studied what that meant and adjusted my diet to change my condition - I reduced my coffee intake and I made a hearty miso soup for my lunch everyday, bringing my hematocrit up to an acceptable level. The doctor couldn’t believe I had done it.

Be advised - 

Pre-Prenatal care also applies to boys and men! When they eat, young men are preparing the quality of their sperm which contains the program of their good or bad health. When they eat, they are creating the quality of their health which they are passing to their child! How many young men do I see leaving the convenience store at lunch time with a huge bag of chips and a huge bottle of Coke! Not a nutritious lunch for a working man! We could go into the eating habits of our mothers and fathers which also influence the quality of our health. Again, I was lucky. My parents’ generation did not have a lot of junk food around and most of it was too expensive for them to buy. That’s no longer true.

We are further and further away from that naturally healthy generation. Possibly four generations removed. In many cases, we could go back to great-great-grandmothers before we reach someone who cooked real nutritious food every day. And THAT effects our health, our children’s health and our future children’s health! The good news is, the body reacts quickly and powerfully to good food and good habits; we can reverse most damage that has been done.

This body that we were given. This body that we nurture will nurture us back.

If we don’t take good care of our body, it will seem to attack us one day when we least expect it.

But, it’s not an attack, it’s our body reacting to what we gave it.

Give your body goodness. Get ready for your baby!

©Patricia Goodwin, 2022

• I am not affiliated with journalist Adam Reilly, nutritionist Michael Pollan, or Mayor Eric Adams, and they have not endorsed me in any way. 

• I am not a doctor, nor a medical professional. I’m just a person who has enjoyed the benefits of a macrobiotic diet and lifestyle for nearly 50 years. I’m 70 years old and not on any medications. When something goes wrong, I am able to consider what caused it, make adjustments and watch things heal. However, by law, I am required to say that any advice you see in my blog is not meant to be followed without first checking with your doctor.

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines. 

Bokeh: The Nature Of The Future

 

Bokeh

What does it mean? According to the internet - “Bokeh is a word with Japanese origins, defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.” The word comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means “haze” or “blur.” (The “h” was introduced to help English speakers pronounce the word correctly [BO - KEH].)”

Took me a while to find it. The way I discovered Bokeh, it was a movie, on television in the middle the night, but it might have been some other art form, a dream, a nightmare, a walk in the deep snow.

I was switching channels when I saw a blonde. I stopped. Something about seeing yourself on tv. I began to be pulled into the story - lovers on a brief, impromptu vacation in Iceland, just a lark, enjoying themselves.

I still didn’t have the word, Bokeh. I still didn’t know the story. Until I did, the whole experience floated in a blur.

The way we see the future. The nature of the future.

All we really know is that we love.

Lovers, making love. They fall asleep. She wakes up, alone, at the witching hour, 3:30 a.m. She’s gazing out the window when suddenly a flash of white light, so bright, it consumes the view, then, back to reality, back to bed.

But daylight brings a new reality.

Perhaps a devastating snow storm, a blizzard. Perhaps a pandemic. Perhaps Iceland will be closed. Italy closed. How could such a thing happen? Overnight? Who or what would close Italy? I begin to worry about the Eiffel Tower.

It was lovely the way it happened. They get up, get dressed and go down the café to get some of those lovely waffles they’d had the day before. But the nice lady who’d made them wasn’t there. In fact, no one was there. The café was empty.

The stores are empty. Giggling, they help themselves to some Icelandic goodies, a fur coat for her, a funny knit cap for him. Food is free! They pile it into a shopping cart and run back to the hotel.

Now they are camping. 

I still don’t know what’s happening. I haven’t read the synopsis. That’s the best way. I don’t even have the title, not that it would help. Bokeh.

I bought the movie, just to have it, I propped the case up in my bedroom. It came to mean, on its own, a question, a deep question, deeper, why do we live? Where do we live? Where do we love?

She wants to go home. I'm beginning to feel the larger tension. They are on an island and there is no way off. Everyone is gone. There’s no one to run the airline, no-one to fly the plane.

She gets angry that he is eating a yogurt out of sequence. “The blueberry is newer! You should be eating the strawberry, it’s older!” she scolds him. “I didn’t feel like having a strawberry,” he explains. Makes perfect sense to me.

They syphon gas and take a car. I shudder. Don’t go too far, I warn, then I realize it makes no difference. 

They drive to the hot springs, which becomes their spot. Lovely scene of naked lovers swimming. Iceland seems a perfect backdrop. Bare and primitive. A good place for life to begin again.

Every now and then, there are moments of hope. Maybe she’ll have a baby! She’d be lucky to get through it alone, but then, it’s a story and maybe she will.

He gets a little crazy and hurts himself riding around the market on a shopping cart. His arm is bleeding. She cries out, “We have to be careful! There’s no 911!”

Then, I remember saying those very words myself.

“There’s no 911!” Hospitals aren’t taking non-essential injuries. Broken bones are waiting hours in the Emergency Room, if that. 

All our care providers called us up and cancelled our check-ups. Luckily, we keep healthy. But, even healthy people need care. A dentist, perhaps. First do no harm. Do dentists take the Hippocratic Oath? My husband has a bad heart. We have to be careful. Physical stresses, even tooth pain, could be deadly for him.

But, what about people who need operations? Nothing. They have to wait. The people, God help me, who let their immune systems die. Some guy ate a bat, a comedian quips.  Or did the  lab release a secret bio-weapon? Either way, we are stuck in a real life horror movie.

Then, the police said they would stop responding because people were shooting at them. No 911.

I don’t remember everything about the movie. I remember the feeling of finding my soul in the middle of the night. I remember the lovers finding old man. They had a meal together in the evening. In the morning, the old man was dead.

I begin to see my injuries as Bokeh, my nasal passage, months later, after finally getting those two infected molars removed. The dentist said, I might have nasal issues. Good God! I’m gonna need that! My nasal passage! I have a dream that I am in a airplane terminal with my mother and I am explaining to her that there is a girl I wish to follow - a blonde girl - she’s right behind that plastic tarp - she saved the airplane and I want to go where she is, through the tarp to the other side. My mother is oblivious to my desires. My husband said she never understood that I wanted to fly.

We are macrobiotic, and yes, we can fly without an airplane.

I begin to call it, Bokeh, all of it. The hole in my mouth, the empty nasal passage. Dreams of my mother. Bokeh, the mystery. Bokeh, the future. I still don’t know the official meaning of the word. But, I get it.

I won’t spoil the ending of the film, except to say there is no resolution. No alien invasion. No superhero to the rescue. No government experiment, though we know they exist. Suffice it to say that I shall keep this film to my heart till I die.

I finally find the meaning of the word (I was spelling it wrong): “Bokeh is a word with Japanese origins, defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.” The word comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means “haze” or “blur.” (The “h” was introduced to help English speakers pronounce the word correctly [BO - KEH].)”

The way the future looks. Now, it means so much more. 

What will we make of it?

©Patricia Goodwin, 2022

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

What Is It Like to be Born Into Goodness?

 

                                            Laura and her mother, Susan

It reminds me of a quote I saw online - “Found on a computer file search: Happiness does not exist. Do you wish to create it?”

I was not born into goodness. I had to create it. (It’s all in my novel, Holy Days.)

I'll tell you what it is like to be born into goodness - you can grow roses!

Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of wonderful home shows hosted by wonderful people who are so good and gracious it's hard to believe they really exist, but trust me when I say no one is that good an actor - you cannot fake what you don’t know.

I’ve been watching Ben and Erin in Home Town. They’re wonderful. Jenny and Dave in Fixer to Fabulous. Equally wonderful. (Jenny and Dave have adopted a child from the Congo, so not everyone in the family was born into goodness, but she’s living there now!)

Mostly, I’ve been watching Garden Answer. Every day I watch the beautiful, blue-eyed, auburn-haired Laura Le Boutillier enthusiastically dig holes. I watch her plant beautiful plants. But, what I really love is hearing her voice. I have to hear the very beginning of every video when she calls out, “Hey, guys! How’re ya doin’?” She talks to me.

She’s my best friend and my husband, though he likes her very much, is tired of hearing about her. In spite of himself though, he gets drawn in. Together, he and I laugh at the antics of Laura’s ginger cat, Russell. Russell suddenly appears behind Laura as she explains about compost, he approaches the porch, he abruptly leaps on to the porch railing, gently balances on the arm of Laura’s chair, settles delicately into her lap, peers over the edge of the computer screen. Lol!

It’s all mesmerizing.

A nurse writes in the comments on YouTube that she gets to work a half hour early every day so she can watch Laura before work.

Laura has over 5 million followers on social media. 1.23 million subscribers on YouTube. I don’t even subscribe, but I’m there every day, sometimes more than that, checking on Facebook if she’s posted another  photo of her gorgeous garden. I especially love what Laura calls her Versailles area, a gentile corner of soft sweetness complete with a Grecian statue of the Goddess Hebe. Laura’s husband, Aaron (they work together so well that after 15 years of marriage, they practically finish each other's sentences) is mostly invisible behind the camera, but he does pop up now and then helping to lift the big pots on to the fork lift that Laura just drives away. It’s adorable to see her delicate form driving off atop heavy machinery. And, if all this wasn't enough, she just popped out another baby, a girl, Samantha Grace!

In today’s video, Laura opened boxes. Garden supplies were in the boxes. It was super fun. She loaded up the Gator (a cool electric golf cart/jeep) with huge boxes and drove them over to a shaded area where she had a party opening them on the lawn. Laura’s son, Benjamin has a mini gator. There’s video of Benjamin tooling around in his mini car, careful to avoid tulips and the robo mower, which is almost as cute in a R2D2 kind of way.

My favorite video is the April flower arrangement. Russell is in it a lot and so is her other ginger kitty, Cheddar. 

I sent Laura and her mother, Susan (Susan is model gorgeous and a very funny addition to the videos. Laura and Susan laugh a lot.) copies of my poetry book, Telling Time By Apples and Other Poems About Life on the Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme. Funny thing about writers, we keep trying to communicate. People send Laura gifts all the time. I wanted to send Laura something. The address listed online is not her home, but her parents’ garden center. Yes, Laura was born to the garden. She’s not a reader, though. She describes herself as a “doer.” But, I think she’ll appreciate the beauty of the book. It is a work of art. And love.

It’s not lost on me that the pandemic has made simple pleasures like home and garden so appealing. My husband loves Laura’s “can-do” spirit. He also loves Ben and Erin; Jenny and Dave, and those two lively twin sisters, Leslie and Lyndsay on Unsellable Houses for the same reason. “They just go ahead and do it!” I love them too.

Maybe Laura will mention me and my poetry book in one of her videos. It will be a moment like the one in Fahrenheit 451 when the television screen speaks to Julie Christie’s character, “Linda! What do you think Linda?” And she gets all befuddled and shy. That would be pretty exciting. But, Laura, you don’t have to mention anything. Maybe drop me an email. 

One other thing Laura has accomplished. My best friend has also fallen in love with Garden Answer. I can’t tell you how great it is to speak with her again about real and beautiful things that we both love. I’ve missed that. Her job and her family has kept her so busy these past 10 years, we’ve lost those precious times we used to spend together.

Thank you, Laura. Thank you for all you do. 

I can’t wait till the next video.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2021

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.