jillyharveyrea-blog

[jillyharveyrea-blog]

Salad

Salad-- I'm only mad because no one let me in on the joke,

Tuna.Chicken.Kale. Ham-- if you really hate your loved ones.

I am fairly certain Webster was nodding out when describing this word.

Salad is a heterogeneous mixture, sometimes with greens, sometimes with mayonnaise because

we evolved into lazy people and wanted to feel good about ourselves. We believe if we slap more

than four ingredients together it's suddenly a magical meal that's going to make us lose weight.

Don't forget the walnuts.

If you think about the words 'Chicken salad' it could be a grilled chicken salad or chicken bits immersed

in a vat of mayonnaise slapped between two pieces of white bread with celery*

and grapes. Why aren't there two separate words for two very different things? How did we become so lazy?

I hate the expression bad apples make good pie. That's not how apples work. Or pie for that matter.

So what's the deal with croutons? Crusty bread that sat in the sun too long tossed in a pile of romaine.

I feel like dentists pray on croutons breaking crowns at least seven times a year. But yet breadcrumbs have this

redeeming quality like the good son coming home from college on Thanksgiving break. What gives?

Taco Salad has more bravery than sorority girl drunk on tequila. It's very much just a giant taco with lettuce.

Caprese Salad is not a salad. When they say (every vegan documentary known to millennials) that cheese releases the same

affect on the brain as heroin. I feel like Caprese salad is a solid go to choice when you want to lie to yourself

about how you feel about cheese. I'm not judging you, I'm just quietly eating mozzarella alone with you.

Macaroni Salad. It's not mac and cheese, it's the reason why so many people commit suicide at Christmas time. Pasta salad

isn't considered macaroni salad. Not every rectangle is a square. I want to meet the person who said, "Yes, elbow noodles

and mayo, I'm going to win the lottery with this one!"

I'm going to break a myth. Mayonnaise isn't nearly as disgusting as we make it out to be, it's just egg whites

and vinegar. But vinegar is a hard word to understand. We cam brine, wine, and sixty-nine just about anything with

vinegar.

Oh and let's briefly discuss salad dressing. If you weren't happy with your lemon juice and iceberg lettuce you can lather

rinse repeat ranch your way into a triple bypass surgery faster than you can turn right off 275. Nothing is sacred. I

worked at a restaurant that gave me grief for pronouncing "puddin'" "pudding" and I have forever hated them and always

imagined the owners bathing in ranch like some sort of cult ritual. Stop lying to yourself when you liquid cheese and

bacon bits all over something green. It's just like in high school and I drank kool-aid because the main ingredient

was water. If you want to eat something sloppy, I will never stop you. Just admit it.

Julius Caesar didn't bang Cleopatra to be forever memorialized as enjoying anchovies and Parmesan cheese together.

What a way to lead a legacy.

I guess what I'm getting at, is if you want to make a meal. Make a meal. Salad is not a four letter word. Stop tossing

shit into mayonnaise and two slices of bleached bread. I love to cook, especially for the people I care about.

So if you're in a committed relationship and someone hands you a Tupperware full of mayonnaised half perishable vegetables,

check their pulse. Please. Double check because I could see this being really cute and disgusting at the same time.

Remember the love of my life eats day old sushi off of a bus seat and doesn't second guess it.

Cooking is a great bonding experience. I'm not saying every person has to be a

Martha Stewart or a Julia Child in the kitchen. They just have to love what they make. No one loves saying the word salad.

Because it doesn't mean anything. Make something you're going to want to snack on piss drunk in the middle of the night.

I promise I've concocted some weird shit and stood by them with enough confidence to overdose an elephant on cocaine.

We can all teach each other and I think that's why we should. Let's grow with our food. Let's try new things.

We're basically all overgrown children with no idea what we're doing anyway. So why not embrace that? Stop making salad

and make a mess instead. Or stop using the term salad to mask your strange dietary needs. Make words real again. It's okay to not know things. How else do we learn?

*Celery, like footnotes are pretentious and clever. It's basically crunchy green water. '

[jillyharveyrea-blog]

Mother Don’t Worry

I decided I was going to write a blog after faints and stints on Facebook. I decided I was going to start with a favorite difficult subject, my mother.

Janet is an odd woman. She loved Sci-Fi and Dark Passages. When she cooks she brightens up the whole house. She has this vibrant energy that makes you believe you could burn a man alive and laugh about it later. She’s a kleptomaniac. She would steal napkin dispensers from ice cream parlors and secret recipes from restaurants trying to figure them out like a Will Shortz crossword puzzle. Sometimes she would even take bracelets from jewelry stores. She always gave herself away. A wink. I never said anything, it was her show and not mine. She made sure of it. She enjoyed being mistaken for Jeannette’s sister instead of her mother. I think that’s where it started. She could be anything she wanted. Even barely alive.

For the last three years my mother has been eating Valium like peanut butter and vodka for breakfast. She’s atrophied her leg muscles and now has a round the clock slew of nurses bathing her. She’s not even sixty-seven. When she calls me, she doesn’t remember me. I’m Jean from Winconsin.

My mother was never very warm or affectionate. She could decorate a living room but never say the words. It’s funny how people throw themselves into projects but can never respond to an email without a panic attack. I value my non motherly cold moments, I really do. They made me who I am. I paid a girl on the bus to pull my tooth because I wanted to be like everyone else and I didn’t want my mom to worry that I was falling behind. It cost me a week’s worth of lunch money and all of my snack packs. I was so excited in a black out terror I remember running to her, tooth in hand, shouting, “Mom I did it! I lost a baby tooth,” and her nonchalant response that still makes me laugh. “Thank God we can cancel your dentist appointment.” The smell of blueberry muffins baking still haunts me.

I told my mother about a year ago that I was getting married. She planned out the entire horror movie for me. A stuffy church, itchy dress and Mexican food on the beach. So naturally I eloped. “Thank God we can still cancel my wedding,” I murmured that the once in between cigarettes. She didn’t get the joke.

I want to be a mother. Some day but not today. I think that’s why I love baking and knitting. I love making people feel loved without asking anything in return. I want people to want to stay. It’s not that I’m afraid of being alone, it’s that I’m already alone. So get cozy with me.