Bad Food Mood

My view on Caulaincourt - very soon.

I’ve been on the road 21 days in the past month – much of it work related- and with so many planes, trains and automobiles in my life, I have grown unfamiliar with thoughtful contemplation of meals to be cooked and instead I’ve plundered my notoriously overstocked pantry and freezer and managed to cull the contents down to such a sorry assortment that instead of vociferously yowling about what I might be cooking for supper, my children just lie on the floor and pant. 

About twice a year I reach the point where I just hate having to think of what we are going to eat next. The second worst time is in late August when the heat is so awful that you break a sweat when you chew.  But the worst time is right now.   I wander into the grocery store and examine the tasteless white fleshed strawberries that have the spirit of turnips and scoff at the display of unscented imported peaches.  Peaches in March?  Whom do they think they’re kidding?   I scowl at the overly solicitous produce manager.  He averts his gaze and goes back to straightening bananas. 

 I’m in a bad food mood.

There is a remedy for my bad food mood but it is very expensive. It involves exports, complicated maps and lists, conference calls and a serious amount of lurking around on the web.  It also involves logistical tactics, paperwork and copious amounts of wheedling and begging.  It has me counting down.  The days.  Until.  Paris.

Paris in April.  

I have been making a grocery list of a different sort on a little journal I keep at hand. While here I pour the ends of three opened boxes of pasta together into the boiling water to toss later with the children’s most beloved canned spaghetti sauce that must contain taste bud dulling chemicals - it is such miserable slop- I jot down “Pate De Campagne" and think of France.  Heating up the end of the giant Costco bag of frozen French fries I think “frites” for me very soon.  I think of Paris and I glower a little less.   Soon.