| PICK
AND POUR
Children will do anything for cake. Even
the elusive magic word becomes commonplace at teatime. They
might spend most of their waking hours locked in combat with
a sibling, or spend 15 minutes defying a harassed, careworn
parent in preference to performing a simple 2-minute chore,
but at teatime, when cake is on the men, they sprout wings
and halos.
Tragically, I have been a great disappointment
to my children. My mother’s skills in the kitchen were
not inherited by the next generation, and my efforts at baking
cause the children to run screaming into the kitchen. Here
I am bombarded by pleas to let them eat the raw cake mixture
before the oven can ruin it forever. Many a flat, burnt offering
has been ceremoniously tossed onto the bird table, but even
the crows turn their beaks up at it, and the resident possum
finds a greater attraction in the contents of my ashtray.
Here the cake remains as testimony to my culinary ineptitude,
until a heavy downpour miraculously dissolves it away. When
I saw my son playing Frisbee with another teatime failure,
I vowed never to bake again. I have also sworn never to make
bread again, after my husband picked up a sand wedge and practiced
chipping my dinner rolls in the back garden. Oh, and pate.
When the family refused to eat it we gave it to the dog, who
took several sniffs of the delicate blend of chicken livers
and brandy, then, without even licking it, threw up on the
kitchen floor.
Still, cake remains a useful behavioural
bribe, and on good days we ceremoniously salivate over the
plastic box from the local supermarket, with “pleases”
falling like rain. I pop the top, (which never seems to fit
back on once it’s opened), and merrily slice away to
appreciative oos and ahhs from a hungry gathering, Failure
no longer, I have redeemed myself, and I am now the best Mum
in the world. But not for long, because I am still a novice
at precision cutting. My children are not good at mathematics,
however, at a glance they can accurately gauge how many molecules
are in each slice. As a spin off they have developed lighting
reflexes, which would put a Karate Dan to shame. Then the
arguing commences.
It was during one of these feeding frenzies
that my mate Kez and her child progeny, Kara, introduced the
concept of “Pick and Pour”. After the rush, Kara,
an only child and thus pitifully handicapped in the art of
smash and grab, was left staring dolefully at the smallest
piece. (She, too, was skilled in molecular science). Her look
of pained distain sparked a rare maternal reaction in her
mother, and my family, like it or not, were henceforth practitioners
of Pick and Pour.
This is how it goes. The child who cuts
the cake, picks last. The child who pours the drink picks
last. The child dividing the lollies picks last. The child
who doesn’t cut, pour or divide picks first, and in
so doing becomes the object of verbal abuse. Very character
building. This works well if you have two children, but any
more and it begins to get complicated. A good memory, or if
your brain has been addled by 10 years of bickering like mine,
a pen and paper, can deflect a small war.
Over the ensuing weeks I cultivated the
technique of Pick and Pour, until we perfected the art, and
sharing time was conducted in quiet acceptance by all parties.
That is, until Kez, the creator and instigator, sabotaged
my hard work. It happened on a combined family camping trip.
I was always the first in the mornings to escape from the
jaws of my malignant sleeping bag, in a desperate sortie for
a reviving cup of caffeine, and since I am a kind, considerate
person (and didn’t move away from the stove quickly
enough), found myself being coerced into breakfast duty.
It was a pattern, which was repeated
every morning, but since Kez was my best buddy, my mate, my
pal, it was a duty I performed without sufferance. That is,
until the complaints began, not, I might add, from the children,
but from Kez. As a retired chef with a discerning palate,
Kez loved her food, but especially her bacon and eggs in the
morning. You might have gathered that I am not especially
good at cooking, and my skills with the frying pan are only
marginally better than those with a cake tin. On the third
consecutive morning of cooking breakfast for the masses, I
spied Kez rudely lifting the crisp, black edge of her egg
and counting the number of rashers underneath. I could have
been mortally offended by this blatant display of ingratitude,
but turned a blind eye, knowing that Kez liked to balance
the lack of quality with quantity. Before I could offer her
some bacon from my own miniature portion, my breakfast was
subjected to the same probing with the utensil. Before I could
protest, my rashers were confiscated, and I was left with
one sad, broken egg floating in the greasy aftermath of the
missing bacon.
Kez is bigger than me, (much bigger), so my cries of distain
were swallowed along with my meagre breakfast. At this point
I was more concerned for the children, who stood staring in
shocked silence, mortified by this blatant disregard for the
Pick and Pour rule.
In hindsight I should have stood up for
myself, if only to illustrate to the children that yes, adults
can be pretty mean too, but turning the other cheek is an
enviable virtue. Thereafter my defeat was re-enacted over
a dozen times a day. I cooked; Kez served, Kez picked. I opened
the wine; Kez poured, Kez picked. In fact, Kez got everything
she wanted, and all I got was the washing up duty. I didn’t
really mind the unfairness of it all. We all have to make
allowances for our friends, and besides, you are supposed
to love them because of their faults, not in spite of them.
If you expect them to be as perfect as you, you wouldn’t
have any friends at all. And besides, Kez and I were opponents
in a weight loss competition, and I found that the more disgruntled
I pretended to be, the more of my food she commandeered, until
she was consuming twice as many calories as me. Who is the
winner now, Kez?
The moral of the story.
• Friends are full of advice, but the sauce that is
good for the goose, is not necessarily good for the gander.
• Healthy competition between friends is good, especially
if you have a hidden agenda
• Pick and Pour is crap.
|
|
