Wednesday 28 July 2010

Risotto

I got home after my exercise class this evening to discover a trail of Cheerios running from the kitchen. The little round nuggets of breakfast cereal seemed to have been placed in an orderly fashion, every foot or so down the hall and into the living room. I wondered if Hansel and Gretel had left a trail whilst trying to find a way out of the forest that is my home. I guess I'll never know. Nobody owned up to it, anyway.

Mr Spanner, kindness incarnate, presented me with cooked food. I'd left the ingredients for risotto in the fridge and he'd used the ones he felt comfortable with i.e. one vegetable, rice and cheese. If he doesn't know exactly what to do with a vegetable, then it will sit in the fridge until it walks out on its own. Consequently the courgettes and leeks are still in the fridge and the risotto was a little unexciting.

I went to get cutlery, only to find that dinner had been served over top of the open cutlery drawer. My knives, forks, spoons, teaspoons, potato masher, bread knife, vegetable peeler, cling-film, sandwich-bags and numerous other bits and bobs are now coated with a thin sprinkling of cheesy rice.

Mr Spanner does not predict events well. He doesn't anticipate the twenty minutes work involved in cleaning out the whole drawer, for the sake of just shutting it. No, this isn't the first time, and no, it won't be the last and yes, I have told him to do food on the other work surface and no, he doesn't remember to do it.

Sigh. Maybe if I just pick out the stickier bits of rice, I can get away without cleaning out the entire thing?

Monday 26 July 2010

Kitchen Chaos

Bad Mommy. I tried to make lunch, I really did. But the chaos monster got me. Mr Spanner, bless him, is not organised. He would do anything for anyone, but not in an organised way. I retreat from chaos. I can't cope with it, so when I opened the kitchen cupboard to retrieve a saucepan and fifteen potatoes, three pan-lids and a colander fell out, I shut the cupboard door and left the kids to make their own lunch. Bad Mommy.

Mr Spanner had put the saucepans away, in his own inimitable style. He doesn't stack things neatly. No, he balances them on top of one another, irrespective of whether they fit inside each other or not. Invariably, the teetering tower of doom falls over and escapes with a crash when the cupboard door is opened.

Years ago, before all my cleaners left me, I had a lady that did (well, she did a bit, but not much). She saw me open a cupboard and dodge the falling tin of baked beans that threatened to break my nose on descent. I tried to explain to her that Mr Spanner can't tessellate or fit things together so they don't fall out.

She said "If he was my husband, I'd tell him"

Ah, telling him! I wish I'd thought of that! Do you really think I haven't?


posted by: Anna Spanner