Food in Life - A Blog by Jen: Flashback

A gazillion years ago I opted to move out of my parents comfy (free) home and move out in to the world of the grown ups....It doesn't matter that I was barely 18 and was working as a waitress at the Victoria pub making minimum wage and tips...I flipped the P's the bird and was out of there!!!!

Yay me! Parties every night featuring super fun people (I think), boxed pink wine, cheap beer and entertainment that consisted of a coffee table and a few quarters. The house was in a "super fabulous" neighborhood that featured one break in to our house and a stolen car crashing in to our front wall. We scooted out of there right quick in to a studio in midtown that is a dim memory.

You might notice that I didn't mention food, and this is a food blog, right? Because in our first house we subsisted on rice and canned tomatoes with some Top Ramen thrown in for variety. My second apartment I know there was a kitchen but I can honestly tell you I have no recollection of ever cooking there.

Then my friend and I were persuaded to move to LA to live with another friend and share a gorgeous townhouse close to UCSB and join in the party life that our friend was enjoying. The rent would be cheap because there were 8 of us living in a 2 bedroom + a loft with one couple sharing the living room couch. Crowded to say the least, but as we all had jobs and were constantly out and about at night in Westwood partying it didn't feel as squished as it might have. But after while we weaned out the couch couple and it was down to 6 chicks living in there. Me + Heidi in the loft, Mandy & Dre in one bedroom and Paula and Marnie in the last. The last two girls were the only "outsiders" in the house as the rest had all migrated from Ventura for a more active social and party life. Paula and Marnie were straight up LA/OC girls from hoity toity neighborhoods with fat bank accounts supporting their college and social lives. Attending UCLA, involved in sororities, they were everything that us beach dwelling, beer drinking, down to earth chicks were not. At 19, they were shopping at Niemans and we were shopping at Macy's when we were lucky. There were many occasions that they made me feel inferior if only because of the difference in our financial standing. I had two jobs and was hanging by a thread to stay there, where they only had to dip in to the trust fund to get whatever their hearts desired.

The scales tipped though, when it came to things like cooking. Mandy, Dre, Heidi and I had all come from a place where we could and would cook....our moms took the time to make dinner and share their knowledge with us. On the rare occasion that we could afford fresh meat I would buy a whole chicken and marinate and roast it...filling our three story condo with smells from home. Paula and Marnie would come home and ask me if I was Betty Crocker or call me Holly Hobby Homemaker.....My skin is pretty thick so I would laugh it off as they scooted out the door to go to dinner at Houston's or some other fun chi chi restaurant in LA while we were housebound eating my soy sauce & brown sugar marinated chicken with rice because we had no money to go out to eat. Green eyed monster much? A little.

Until the day that I caught Paula cooking.

I walked down the hallway to our front door smelling a rancid horrible smell that only got worse as I got nearer. I opened the door and the smell hit me like a brick wall and I saw Paula flailing in the kitchen flapping a pot holder trying to get a pot to the sink while wisps of smoke were sneaking from the lid.

After helping her calm down and turn off the smoke alarm I tried to get out of her what happened and how it could be fixed (because that is what I do). As it turns out she was trying to cook because she was trying to lose a little weight and was trying to have some steamed veggies for dinner. I opened up the pot and looked inside the double boiled to find char crusted broccoli stuck to the inside.

I asked "Did you walk away?"

She said "no...."

Puzzled I looked at her again and asked "how did you prepare the broccoli?"

She replied "I just cut it up and put it in the steamer....."

My next question was "did you put water in the steamer?"

*crickets*

*more crickets*

Paula "No, I thought I could just put it in the steamer and it would get steamed"

Me after a long awestuck pause "Paula, exactly where in the EFF do you think steam comes from????????"

After that I didn't feel as inferior to the trust fund bound, sorority mentality, under educated girls I lived with because at last I had something up on them.

That's Betty Fucking Crocker to you bitch.

Printed by permission. Visit Jen's blog @ http://foodinlife.blogspot.com/