Be Gentle With You

I have mentioned that my remarkable daughter, Sage, is doing Whole 30 with me. She has chosen to join me in this discipline during the 30 days that include her finals – and all the work leading up to finals! She’s super cool in lots and lots of ways, so this is actually minor in the great scheme of Sage, but I think it’s also strong and cool to choose to be disciplined during the time when no one would blink twice if she washed a pizza down with soda all day, every day of the stretch of finals.

So, when she was working on an essay today, I was kind of struck by my longing to bring her something she loves to eat – which is completely not Whole 30. A box of sour patch kids or gold fish crackers and a giant, fun drink from Starbucks. It’s our way. I provide a lot of snacks; even her meals have been known to be what we call a “snack plate”: a few cubes of cheese, rolls of turkey/ham, a few apple slices, and some crackers.

Today, I got out a cool tray I use at parties, cooked a little bacon (seemed like the most decadent thing on Whole 30!), and created this snack for my scholar. It was just something for her to snack on, not a big deal. Except it kind of was a big deal because it was the result of my examination of long-held patterns in our home/kitchen/relationship. Fruit, nuts, bacon, and a piece of celery with almond butter sweetened with date paste for my amazing girl who joins me on journeys like this while she is journeying toward being the finest elementary school teacher ever.

And she loves salmon, too. So, when I left for work, I put the frozen salmon in the frig to thaw for the several hours I would be gone. By the time I was cooking it, it was still a bit frozen, but I thought the middle would thaw as the rest cooked.

Oh, Jennifer, you know you are not a chef. You know that you don’t really know these things. You know that there is a 50/50 chance you are right about fish thawing or brownies being done or which spices to use in the bone broth. But you put that salmon in the pan like you knew what you were doing. And when the edges were done, but the middle was still kinda frozen, you picked off the done parts and let it keep cooking. When the outside of the salmon was going to burn, then you moved your ridiculous, expensive mess to the toaster oven to let it keep cooking. And you stood there, removing the parts that were getting done until it was all done, and you had a plate that looked like this. It was tasty, but it took forever, used MORE dishes than necessary, and does not look like the expensive salmon fillets you bought. Also, I didn’t notice the time when I took the picture, but it just adds to the laughable-ness of it all.

So, here’s the thing about Day 10 for me. I got to the end of it, and the only things I had to write about were how important it was for me to provide a fun snack for my studying kid…and how lame of a chef I am. I really have nothing to report about Whole 30 foods and 48 and me today. We’re clicking just fine, all three of us.