So I’m not really a good cook. That’s not a judgment, merely stating fact. I guess it’s not so much that I’m a bad cook, just an infrequent one. Kind of like saying I’m a bad scuba diver. I really wouldn’t know either way.
And much like a novice diver, who gets stung by the occasional jellyfish, from time to time I feel the pain of straying too far into the culinary depths without a guide. This time, it was pizza that got me.
I can’t really get into too many of the details because this project is all part of a get-rich-quick-so-I-can-stop-searching-monster-for-jobs-every-freaking-four-hours-of-every-freaking-day plan. I have a vision for a new product that is going to revolutionize how people eat out. And I have a brilliant name for it as well. Both must remain under wraps, but I can tell you that it involves pizza.
I’ve roped my friend Natasha into this scheme, mainly because she has the week off before she starts her new job. And because she, too, shares my vision. Unfortunately, she’s not a good cook either.
We decided to do some test runs of my new product, so I hit the Jewel in search of all the key ingredients: Cheese. Sauce. Pepperoni. Dough.
I tried to find the little Chef Boy-Ar-Dee boxes of pizza dough because that’s what Nat recommended. Found cornbread and pie crust mixes, but no pizza dough. Then I hit the frozen aisle, and found a big bag containing three frozen balls of dough. Nat was going to come over yesterday to test this out, so I let them thaw out on the counter. Plans changed, she got home too late, so I put the dough back in the refrigerator so we could make the pizza today.
This morning when I got up to eat my usual breakfast, I opened up the fridge, grabbed some cake, and shut the door. You know how sometimes you see something out of the corner of your eye, but it takes a few minutes to register in your brain? Well, that’s what happened to me after I took two steps into the dining room. I put the cake down, went back to the refrigerator, and opened it up to find what appeared to be an episode of “I Love Lucy” being filmed in my kitchen.
The bag of dough had expanded to at least five times its normal size – I’m not kidding – it was the size of a bed pillow. Apparently, you can’t just put dough in the refrigerator – it must remain frozen at all times until the moment you’re about to pop it into the oven. Sure it says “Keep Frozen” in big blue letters on the bag, but who really thinks you have to read instructions for dough? The bag had ripped open at the seams, and gooey pizza dough had oozed out all over my freshly cleaned refrigerator.
I promised Nat that I would keep the dough-beast alive long enough for her to see it before I put it out of its misery. She’s on her way over with a box of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee dough right now. I may need to keep searching monster.com for that dream job…

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My friends Natasha, Seamus, and I have been taking tap dance lessons for the past six months. None of us had ever taken tap before, and it was a choice between this and fencing. After a friend told me about her experience wearing a sweaty, smelly rented fencer’s mask, the choice was obvious.
We’ve finally moved up to Tap II where the range of skill levels is really broad. A few of the really good students occasionally help the instructor out with all of us remedial students. I’ve nicknamed one of these superstar students Midge. I feel kind of bad about that – I jokingly called her that once to Seamus and Nat because she’s really little, and the name just stuck. I think her real name is Kathy. Or Helen.
For some reason, I don’t like Midge. Maybe it’s because she’s so small. Maybe it’s because she gets a real smug look on her face when she tries to show me how to Buffalo. She’s not all that, with her size 5 1/2 tap shoes. I just don’t like her.
Or maybe it’s because she kind of looks like me. She wears similar glasses, and has brown curly hair. One day we were both wearing blue t-shirts and white pants, and when I looked at her in the mirror across the room, I felt like I was seeing a carnival funhouse version of myself. I had to move to the other side of the studio.
My friend Seamus has discovered that when he does certain steps, his right hand moves uncontrollably. We all believe this to be some strange neurological disorder. Whatever quadrant of the brain controls tapability obviously affects the other motor skills. We like to call it Jazz Hand Syndrome. On the complicated moves, his right hand just starts flapping back and forth involuntarily at his side, like he’s secretly waving from a parade float. Just when I had gotten used to this distraction, we learned a new side step move. Suddenly, Seamus’ thumb popped up like he was hitching a ride. Now we call him The Fonz. AAAAAYYYYY!!!!

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Yesterday was Father’s Day, and for the first time ever, I decided to invite my family over and cook for them. I had my mom, dad, grandmother and aunt over to my apartment in Chicago for a home-cooked lunch. To most people, lunch wouldn’t seem like a big deal – just slap together a few turkey sandwiches and some chips and be done with it. But my grandma comes from the old school farmer mentality (although I’m not sure anyone in her family ever farmed) where lunch is the biggest meal of the day. This is apparently why she calls it dinner. To this day, I still get confused when she invites me over for dinner. Dinner is lunch. Supper is dinner. Breakfast is still breakfast.
So on top of the stress of having to prepare a full meal for relatives for the first time in my life, I also had the stinging memory of my grandmother’s question the first time I invited her over to my house when I lived in Milwaukee:
“Do you keep a clean house?”
This was her first question. Honestly. And without hesitation I answered, “Yes,” but then started to taste acid in the back of my throat as I thought about the last time I scrubbed my kitchen floor. So for the past three days I have been mopping, dusting, disinfecting, and reorganizing every inch of my apartment. Never mind the fact that my grandmother has glasses as thick as ashtrays and wouldn’t notice a dead pigeon on the floor let alone a piece of lint. I had something to prove.
With the cleaning under control, I was now left to the much more daunting task of making the meal. My father’s request was pot roast. I typically eat toast and cheese for dinner, so cooking a four pound slab of marbled beef didn’t exactly put me in my comfort zone. I googled “pot roast recipe” and found exactly 167,000 entries. After reading through dozens of recipes requiring exotic ingredients like balsamic vinegar reductions, or wine soaked figs, or potatoes, I decided to go for the old reliable recipe on the box of Lipton Onion Soup Mix.
It actually turned out quite well, and my grandmother paid me the greatest compliment a 93-year old woman can give a 33-year old single gal in the city: “Well, Jenny can get married now. She’s a good cook, and her house is so tidy.”
After lunch/dinner, I gave my dad his Father’s Day gift, which was permission to stay at my apartment and watch golf while the gals and I went to the garden shop down the street. His eyes welled up a bit as I handed him the remote.
In addition to being an excellent cook, my mother is also an amazing gardener, so she was truly in her element at the store. She also loves to chat with strangers when she’s picking out plants, and at one point, I noticed that a crowd had gathered around her. There were about six gay men following her around from plant to plant, asking her recommendations.
“Does this need full sun?”
“What do you think about these two plants together?”
“Will these come back next year?”
My mother had become an instant celebrity. And she had an answer for everything.
“The common name for this is Moses in the Pulpit. It’s a very hardy annual, and you can bring it inside as a houseplant in the winter.”
“There’s actually a bulb that forms from this plant that can be split and replanted in other areas of your garden.”
“A solution of urine mixed with paprika is the best thing I’ve found to keep the deer away from your rose bushes.”
I really didn’t need to hear that last suggestion spoken aloud, but the crowd just nodded in approval, and wanted more. She had become a pied piper of sorts. As we were leaving amidst groans of disappointment and a flurry of final questions, the lone woman in the group said to me, “You sure have a lovely family.”
I couldn’t agree more.

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