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I cook for my family. Khổng lồ put it another way: I am my family"s cook, & so I cook almost every night. I cook three hundred days a year, và have cooked three hundred days a year for years. I cook for the three of us—for my wife, my daughter, và myself—and before there were three of us, I cooked for the two of us. I am a husband who cooks for his wife, which makes me a man who cooks for his woman và now his women, which in turns makes me a man who khổng lồ some extent cooks like a woman: out of love và generosity, yes, but also out of service, out of duty. I cook because it"s my job. I don"t get many days off from cooking. I don"t take many days off cooking, because I only like to eat at restaurants that serve food better than my own, or that serve Mexican food or sushi. Hell, I don"t even take days off from cooking when I go out for days on the road, because before I leave I prepare my family food lớn be eaten in my absence. I cook so that there is no absence. I cook so that I am always there, even when I"m gone, even when I die, và my cooking translates in my daughter"s memory as, simply, this: time.
This is not to lớn say that my cooking is selfless. It is anything but, because in order khổng lồ endure cooking like a woman I have khổng lồ cook lượt thích a man—which is to say, for myself. The food I cook for my family is the food I lượt thích to eat. The food I lượt thích to eat is the food I cook for my family. I cook out of hunger, and so, lớn the degree that I am selfless as a cook, I am also despotic & fanatical. I vì everything myself, make everything myself, from salad dressings to lớn chili powder. I bởi vì not ask for help và I vị not consider shortcuts. I want to lớn take time, not save it, aware of the paradox born of my driven dedication, aware that if the time I spend at the stove is time given khổng lồ my family, it is also time taken away.
This, however, is not a story of my cooking, or the odd combination of freedom and thralldom it confers. It"s the story of what—or who—inspired my decision to lớn be my family"s cook, gave me the will to vì chưng it, và made it both a practical and, apparently, a psychological necessity. It is the story of my mother—of my mother"s cooking.
My mother, Frances Junod, was not just a mother, not just a mom. She was a dame. She was a broad. She was a beauty from Brooklyn who wore fantastic hats, when they were in style, and furs, even when they were not. She went through her entire life as a Harlowesque platinum blonde, và I never knew the real color of her hair. She liked go to lớn the track, & she liked lớn go out khổng lồ restaurants. She did not lượt thích to cook. That she did it anyway—that she had no choice—owed itself lớn generational expectations, và to the fact that if my mother was a doll, in the Runyonesque sense of the word, my father was a guy, a pinky-ringed sharpie who spent many nights going lớn the thủ đô new york City restaurants my mother longed to lớn frequent, but who, on nights when he came home, loudly expected food on the table. So my mother put food on the table. She was my family"s cook. She cooked three hundred nights a year.
She cooked for my father, and, when he was away, which was often, she cooked for me and my brother và my sister, và then, when they, both ten years older than me, left home, she cooked for me. She cooked me spaghetti with butter & cheese. She cooked me hamburgers, "pan-fried" without added fat on a hot, salted cast-iron skillet, until they formed a hard crust. She cooked me scrambled eggs, made idiosyncratic by the addition of a teaspoon of water. She cooked me shell steaks sprinkled with salt & Ac"cent—MSG—and she cooked chicken parts lathered in a sweet-sour sauce called Saucy Susan and she cooked me chicken or veal cutlets bought "scallopini" style at the supermarket and coated in Progresso Italian-Style breadcrumbs. For dessert she made Junket or Jell-O or My-T-Fine chocolate pudding. Except for Friday nights, when she served a cold meal—what she called a "platter" of cantaloupe slices, cottage cheese, và tuna fish salad—she never cooked for herself, to lớn satisfy her own hunger.
It took me a while lớn figure out that she hated cooking, và a while—much—longer to figure out that she hated cooking because she couldn"t cook. For one thing, she was my mother, and mothers were supposed lớn know how to cook. For another, I was her child, & so for most of my childhood she was the only cook in the world. I had to lượt thích her cooking, và I did, as long as she observed the Mashed Potato Rule. The Mashed Potato Rule, simply stated, is this: There is no such thing as bad mashed potatoes as long as they"re actually potatoes, mashed. We had mashed potatoes a lot when I was a kid—I can still see the blood and, better, the clear juices from the pan-fried hamburger running into them on my plate—and it didn"t matter that they were lumpy và grainy & that my mother had no talent for making them; they were Edenic so long as she did. I loved them, as I loved her. That she was not the kind of mother who made everything from scratch, the way the mothers of my Italian friends did; that for her the words "homemade" và "gourmet" were virtually interchangeable, to lớn be pronounced with the same dreamy covetousness she employed when she pronounced the word "Paris" or "Aruba" or some other exotic destination she knew she"d never visit; that the only vegetables I ever ate came not from a field but rather from a can (Le
Seur) or a freezer pack (Jolly Green Giant); that she favored convenience foods lớn the extent that I came to fear them, and cringe at commercials for the Pillsbury Doughboy: All this was not forgiven but simply forgotten when the mashed potatoes were potatoes, mashed. But while on my plate they formed the barrier between the battleship-gray lamb chops & the olive-drab green beans, in my heart they formed the barrier between the discovery that my mother hated cooking và the altogether different discovery that my mother hated cooking so much that she even hated cooking for me.
See, I had figured that my mother hated cooking for the obvious reason that she hated cooking for my father. She could never satisfy him. Indeed, she hated cooking for him so much that he kept their marriage intact by absolving her of the responsibility—by taking her with him to lớn Roosevelt Raceway, where they ate at the Cloud Casino, while I stayed home and panfried a shell steak in the salted pan và made spaghetti with butter-and-cheese. But I was absolved of responsibility as well. I was in high school, stoned và rapacious & suddenly không tính tiền to be disloyal, by which I mean I was suddenly không tính tiền to tell the truth. Lượt thích most human beings, I grew up making the connection between food và love; what I began to lớn realize when I started cooking for myself was that the more necessary connection was between food & honesty. My parents were both charmingly dishonest people; my father"s lies were such that he couldn"t admit them except khổng lồ urge me to develop, lượt thích him, "a little larceny in your soul," but my mother could, since most of her lies were about food. "Oh, I"m a terrible fibber," she"d say, & then blithely assert that the Mott"s applesauce she"d doctored with lemon and cinnamon was "homemade" or that she"d spent "hours over a hot stove" cooking the package of frozen Banquette fried-chicken drumsticks on our plates. She"d say this with a knowing cackle that served simultaneously as an admission of guilt & as a warning that we must never say that she was guilty. Food was love, all right, & we had khổng lồ tell my mom that we loved her by buying into her "fibs" about it. To vì otherwise was not only lớn make her cry but also lớn risk the wrath of my dad, who was as fearsome in his defense of my mother as he was in his attacks upon her. Và so dinnertime became an exercise in swallowing a fiction that everybody knew was untrue, và the story that was repeated over & over and over again in my family (the other enforced fiction in my family being the fiction that the story you were hearing for the hundredth time was a story you"d never heard before) was the time my mother made a huge vat of her "homemade" applesauce for my brother"s wrestling-team dinner & my brother ate the whole thing in order to spare my mother the knowledge that nobody else did.
I was still in high school và living at home when my mother first broke the Mashed Potato Rule: when the mashed potatoes she served started tasting lượt thích the mashed potatoes that were served in my high school cafeteria; when it was clear that, in fact, they were neither mashed nor potatoes. From another perspective: I was in high school when I first broke the rule that if food was lớn be love then so was the obligation to accept my mother"s untruths about it. Me: Ma (I always called her Ma), what"s with the potatoes? My mother: What"s wrong with the potatoes? Me: They"re not potatoes. My father: Just eat the potatoes. Your mother slaved over a hot stove to lớn make those potatoes. Me: They"re not potatoes. They came from a box. My mother: So what if they come from a box? They"re still potatoes. Me: They"re not potatoes! My mother: You can"t tell the difference.
And with that my mother uttered the signal words of my culinary existence, which happened khổng lồ be the signal words of my familial existence as well. I could tell the difference, và I spent the rest of my life proving that I could. My mother, for her part, spent the rest of her life trying khổng lồ prove that I couldn"t. I refused to eat the potato flakes that she served me, or the potato buds, or the potato powder, và my mother refused khổng lồ admit that they were potato flakes & potato buds và potato powder. I mean, she would hide the box. She would peel a potato và put the peelings on vị trí cao nhất of the garbage, & the box of French"s at the bottom. I used khổng lồ think that she should have used her ingenuity just khổng lồ mash the damned potatoes, while using my own ingenuity lớn find the box & to produce it, with prosecutorial flourish. "Come on," my father said, "enough"s enough. Just eat the potatoes. You"re breaking your mother"s heart." But enough was never enough, because just as my mother had come khổng lồ the conclusion that It"s not worth it, I was coming to lớn the conclusion that It is. The only thing left khổng lồ be decided was the matter of what that mysterious "it" might be, and the only thing we both understood was that a lot more was at stake than the authenticity of my mother"s "mashies."
My mother was a good mother. I was a good son. My mother was a betrayed woman—I think I knew that, from an early age—and so I was careful never lớn betray her, as she, by instinct, never betrayed me. But now I felt betrayed, & I betrayed her in return, by learning lớn cook. No: by cooking. No: by marrying a girl who had no interest in cooking, và cooking for her. No: by cooking for my wife as I wished my mother had cooked for me. No: by cooking as my father would have cooked, had he taken up the toque—by cooking unyieldingly, despotically, ball-bustingly, hungrily, not just selflessly but also selfishly, as an assertion of prerogative. When my mother came to lớn visit, I made her chop, according to specification. "How"s this?" she"d ask, showing me the cutting board of haphazardly chopped broccoli, và when I"d say she had to lớn chop it smaller, finer, more uniformly, she"d say, "You"re some pain in the ass" or "What a pill." I was perversely proud of her exasperation, perversely proud lớn be addressed in terms heretofore reserved for my old man. A pill? I had never been a pill before. I had always been, in my mother"s estimation, "a good egg," but now I"d become a pill by insisting that my eggs taste good. My mother wasn"t college-educated, but she wasn"t stupid, either. She knew what was going on. When, much later, I wrote a flattering profile of my father for a magazine, she dismissed it tersely: "Don"t forget who raised you, kid." But my cooking—my decision to cook—was a rejection of the way I"d been raised, a rebuke of the way she"d raised me. I had been on my mother"s side, but now, unforgivably, I was on my father"s, by taking my mother"s job.
And yet hunger won out, as it always does in human affairs. As I learned lớn cook, I eventually learned what to lớn cook for my parents—what made them hungry & satisfied their hunger at the same time, without carrying an implicit statement meant lớn divide or offend them. It was pot roast. On Sunday nights after they moved near us, we"d have them over for Sunday supper—a term that seemed the province of a family not my own—and I"d serve the one meal that, as any novice cook knows, obeys its own variant of the Mashed Potato Rule: There"s no such thing as a bad pot roast as long as you put enough stuff in the pot & you roast it long enough. But my mother didn"t know. Because she"d become too old and uncertain khổng lồ chop, she"d watch me vày the work và laugh lớn herself, as was her habit: "What are you laughing at, Ma?" "Nothing. Just laughin"." But she was interested not just in what she still regarded as my folly but in what made my folly worth it—what made the food good. There was a word that my mother used in restaurants, used, indeed, almost anytime she was eating food she didn"t have to lớn cook, and that was "delicious," as in, "Hey, Ma, how"s that pork chop?" "Delicious." She said it with a combination of relief, wonder, và her own kind of hunger, which was the hunger lớn be free—to be what she was when she first married my father: a pampered beauty, a spoiled child. Now she used it, admitted it, in regard lớn my pot roast, & she wanted to lớn know why. "What kind of meat vì chưng you use?" she"d always ask, and when I wondered why she wanted lớn know, she said, "Well, it"s always so tender." và that"s how I knew what I wasn"t supposed lớn know all along: My mother didn"t know how to lớn cook. She didn"t know the rule that can get you through just about any meal, the rule that"s even more fundamental than the one governing the preparation of mashed potatoes: If it"s tender, cook it fast over high heat; if it"s tough, cook it slow over low. I used khổng lồ wonder why my mother hated cooking so much. I used to wonder why she cooked salmon fillets for two hours & pot roast for one. I thought for a long time that it was because she was a bad cook, because she rejected cooking as a way of rejecting us, because she was, at heart, a liar. Now I understood that she hated cooking because she didn"t know how to bởi it and so had no idea how a meal might turn out. I understood that she simply wasn"t cut out for it, and yet, because she was part of the postwar suburban vanguard, she knew she was going to be judged on it—and so she demanded khổng lồ be judged on it, meal after awful meal. Hence, the fibs; hence, the lies. She was as innocent of culinary knowledge as the housewives of her era were supposed khổng lồ be innocent of sexual knowledge, and once I figured that out, I came lớn the same conclusion I came to when I figured out the extent of my father"s infidelities: They were in over their heads. They were more unhappy than I ever allowed myself lớn know. They deserved the love they got, and the forgiveness they didn"t.
Did she forgive me? Did she forgive me for being a pill and a pain in the ass—for taking my father"s side? I know damned well she never thought of it that way. I was her son, after all, and I was a good egg. But that"s how I thought of it, and I can tell you that the narrative arc of a life is more unforgiving than a mother could ever be. After my father died, my mother went into assisted living—or, lớn be more precise and unsparing, I put her there. She flourished, though food was an issue. "Ma, eat something." "I"m not hungry." "C"mon. The food"s not bad"—and to lớn prove it, I"d eat large platefuls of it, including the mashed potatoes that were neither mashed nor potato. "It stinks," she"d say, và that was that. One day, in her ninety-second year, she simply stopped eating, & when she went khổng lồ the hospital for intravenous fluids, she suffered a stroke that deprived her of her ability to lớn feed herself. I had a conversation with her gerontologist, in which he told me the way she would die, in which he told me that unless she was fed via feeding tube she would die of the complications of malnutrition—of hunger. He didn"t want to lớn give her a feeding tube. Neither did I, versed as I was in the letter và spirit of her living will và her medical directives. But I never asked her about it. I never told her that we planned for her lớn die. I simply went every day, and tried to spoon-feed her cottage cheese that dribbled from her mouth lượt thích sand. I even cooked for her—the spaghetti with butter and cheese that was the first food I ever loved; the pot roast that was the last food she called delicious. I was the family cook, which meant that I was driven to lớn preserve my family by making them care about something they had to lớn do: eat. But my mother didn"t have to care anymore. She didn"t even have to eat. The family cook, I fed her tenderly khổng lồ the last, và she starved khổng lồ death.
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+My+mother+can+cook____________+2.+He+does+not+play+tennis+as+well+as+Jack.+=>+Jack+can___________________+3.+I+did+not+spend+as+much+money+as+you.+=>+You+spe..." class="robinsonmaites.com-text-link">
1. I can’t cook as well as my mother. => My mother can cook____________
2. He does not play tennis as well as Jack. => Jack can___________________
3. I did not spend as much money as you. => You spent___________________
4. I don’t think this book is expensive as it is. => This book is____________
5. . This is the most interesting film of all. => No other films are_____________
6 He drives more carefully than Jack does. => Jack_____________
7. Other oceans in the world aren’t as large as the Pacific one. => The Pacific Ocean is ______
#Tiếng anh lớp 12
2
Hà An
1. I can’t cook as well as my mother. => My mother can cook_______better than I_____
2. He does not play tennis as well as Jack. => Jack can_________play tennis better than him__________
3. I did not spend as much money as you. => You spent_________more money than I__________
4. I don’t think this book is expensive as it is. => This book is________not as cheap as I think____
5. . This is the most interesting film of all. => No other films are_______more intersting than this one______
6 He drives more carefully than Jack does. => Jack_____does not drive as carefully as him________
7. Other oceans in the world aren’t as large as the Pacific one. => The Pacific Ocean is ___the largest ocean in the world___
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An nai lưng
1. I can’t cook as well as my mother.
=> My mother can cook better than I do.
2. He does not play tennis as well as Jack. => Jack can play tennies better than he does.
3. I did not spend as much money as you.
=> You spent much money than me.
4. I don’t think this book is expensive as it is.
=> This book is
5. . This is the most interesting film of all. => No other films are as interesting as this film.
6 He drives more carefully than Jack does. => Jack doesn"t drive as carefully as he does.
7. Other oceans in the world aren’t as large as the Pacific one.
=> The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world.
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+My+mother+can+cook___________________.+2.He+does+not+play+tennis+as+well+as+Jack.+=>+Jack+can__________________..." class="robinsonmaites.com-text-link">
Bài tập: viết lại câu nghĩa ko cố đổi.1.I can't cook as well as my mother.=> My mother can cook___________________.2.He does not play tennis as well as Jack.=> Jack can______________________3.I did not spend as much money as you.=> You spent ________________________4. I don't think this book is expenvive as it is.=> This book is ________________________ HELP ME ...
Đọc tiếp
Bài tập: viết lại câu nghĩa ko nắm đổi.
1.I can't cook as well as my mother.
=> My mother can cook___________________.
2.He does not play tennis as well as Jack.
=> Jack can______________________
3.I did not spend as much money as you.
=> You spent ________________________
4. I don't think this book is expenvive as it is.
=> This book is ________________________
#Tiếng anh lớp 12
2
Huy chiến hạ Nguyễn
Bài tập: viết lại câu nghĩa ko thay đổi.
1.I can"t cook as well as my mother.
=> My mother can cook better than me.
2.He does not play tennis as well as Jack.
=> Jack can play tennis better than him.
3.I did not spend as much money as you.
=> You spent more money than me.
4. I don"t think this book is expenvive as it is.
=> This book is not as expensive as it is.
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Linh Nguyễn
1.I can"t cook as well as my mother.
=> My mother can cook__________better than my mother_________.
2.He does not play tennis as well as Jack.
=> Jack can___________play better than him___________
3.I did not spend as much money as you.
=> You spent ___________more money than I do_____________
4. I don"t think this book is expenvive as it is.
Xem thêm: Chứng Minh Tỉ Số Diện Tích Của Hai Tam Giác Đồng Dạng Định Lí
=> This book is __________more expensive than I think______________
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Rewrite the second sentences in such a way that it has the same meaning as the one before it 1 Jane can swim further than I can't - I can't _____________2 . My sister can't cook as well as my mother does - My mother can't _____________3. I don't play tennis as well as my brother does - My brother __________________4. Apples are usually cheaper than oranges - Apples are not ____________5. Cats can't swim as well as dogs can - Dogs can ______________6. The dress is cheaper than the...
Đọc tiếp
Rewrite the second sentences in such a way that it has the same meaning as the one before it
1 Jane can swim further than I can't - I can't _____________
2 . My sister can't cook as well as my mother does - My mother can't _____________
3. I don't play tennis as well as my brother does - My brother __________________
4. Apples are usually cheaper than oranges - Apples are not ____________
5. Cats can't swim as well as dogs can - Dogs can ______________
6. The dress is cheaper than the skirt - The dress is not _____________
7. Peter is the tallest boy in his class- No one ____________
8. Nobody in the class is cleverer than Sally- Sally is __________________
9. Have you got a cheaper carpet than this ? - Is this _______________
10. They understand more than we bởi vì - We don ' t _____________________
11. Tom is the best football player in this team - Nobody ____________________
12. Nothing is fastet than the speed of lighr - The speed of light ____________________
13. His mother is taller than his father - His father is not _______________
14 . She's a faster & more careless driver than I am - She drives
15. Jane is a better cook than Robert - Robert can't ________________________