Home on the Range

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Added: Mon. Dec 28, 2009 5:26pm
Posted in: Living

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My stove got a workout over the past week and half for the holidays.  I've been an empty-nester now for a few months, and with the exception of the occasional dinner I cook for the two of us, I'm pretty much hewed to the line of turning my twenty-five-year-old electric stove into a plant stand.  Why stand at a stove and cook for yourself, goes the thought, when you can be doing something else?  Painting, sanding, remodeling, reading a magazine, knitting, curling up with a classic movie on DVD and a big cat in my lap like a furry doorstop, writing, emailing....

Food, I've always felt, is best shared with others.  And certainly more fun is had in preparing it for others.  So when my son left for college this year, I resigned myself to evenings with drive-through salads and Lean Cuisine frozen dinners and sandwiches-on-the-fly.  When the days were longer and I still spent the evenings out in the yard, it was a great working theory. The days are shorter now, though, and it's cold outside, and so I've had to find a new "to do" list for the evenings.   

But with all of the kids coming home for Christmas this year, and bringing their beloveds and pets, I stocked up on the chocolate chips and butter and sugar and flour and fired up the stove again.  If I had a grand total of five days to spread Christmas cheer and a "homecoming" feeling for children alighting and then taking off repeatedly like winter birds flitting from one perch to the next, I threw myself into harness like a retired firehorse who perks up at the sound of a bell.  Banana bread.  Sour cream pound cake.  Christmas cookies.  Pork roast and quiche and fruit salad and home-baked white bread and hot chocolate with whipped cream and nutmeg on it.   

As I stirred and mixed and baked and browned, memories flooded back from the time when my life revolved around keeping four little bodies safe and warm and constantly fed.  Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, cookies, birthday cakes, potluck lasagnas, peanut butter sandwiches, pancakes, omelets, cheesecakes galore.  I'm sure that I've cooked enough spaghetti in my life to circle the globe a time or two if the noodles were placed end to end.  And I always knew that they appreciated it by the sounds of delight that greeted my ears when the aroma of something cooking registered in their brains.  It was exactly the same this time!

The burners have cooled down again, and once again the oven is cold and dark and empty.  When the last of the pans is finally washed and put away, I'll move the vase of cut flowers back to the center of the stove, and maybe add a couple of African violets to balance it out.  I'll have leftovers for the next couple of nights, then dinner's entirely up for grabs.

But it will be a long time before the glow wears off and I stop remembering what it was like to stand in front of the stove again, knowing that squeals of delight would meet what I produced there, and feeling, briefly, like I stood again at the warm and fragrant center of the universe.

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