Judge-y Lithography

Well, if that title doesn't draw you in....on a food blog....I don't know what will!  Several months ago (perhaps almost a year even), my sister passed along four fun little prints that she bought online to hang in her kitchen.  My sister is blessed with the interior design gene (I, sadly, am not) and decided, once she had the prints in hand, that they did not "go" with the other colors gracing her cooking space.  They did, however, "go" with mine, so she offered to them to me.  I framed them and hung them in a fairly prominent space in my kitchen; I see them every time I walk into that room and I find something new to love every time I look at them.  Each of the prints is different, but all are done in the style of the 1940's Victory Garden propaganda, extolling all Americans to "do their duty" and grow their own food.  The fun thing about these prints is that they are very vintage looking, but they tell you to, "Eat Local Greens", "Plant an Urban Farm Garden" and "Grow Food on an Organic Farm".  Out of the four, my favorite is a picture of a spoon and fork, standing behind a still life of vegetables (tomato, cucumber, onion, etc.) and a mason jar of what I can only assume are some kind of peas or beans.  Above this little tableau are the words, "Eat Real Food".

"Eat Real Food".  That is such a simple statement, but has become such an expansive movement recently in our culture.  There is so much that this one little sentence applies to: GMO's, the whole Monsanto fiasco, the potential for artificial sweetener in milk...it seems like this "real food", or rather, lack thereof, issue is in my face all of the time and honestly, I do get kind of tired of it.  There are times that I just want to say, "@#$% it!  I've had enough!"  I had one of those moments the other night as I was trying to muster the energy to cook dinner for our family.  The menu that night was scheduled to be: "chicken thighs, marinated in a mojo of freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice, olive oil and garlic, grilled to perfection, served alongside fresh, crisp-grilled asparagus and a salad of Campari tomato slices, topped with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper".  I had, however, forgotten to take the chicken out to thaw in the refrigerator the night before, so while it was [sort of] thawing in a sink full of cold water, I sat down....and promptly fell asleep.

Fortunately, my husband had come home early that afternoon, so my little cat-nap didn't impact my whole "caring for my children" thing, but snoozing did delay our dinner a bit.  I woke up groggy and grouchy and I seriously considered giving the thawing chicken a "@#$% it" by scrapping my original menu plans.  I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for our evening meal, but right at that moment, cooking seemed like a huge hassle that I was willing to trade for sending my husband out to bring back burgers and boiling the barely thawed meat off for another day.  Blearily, I cast my eyes about my kitchen, trying to make up my mind.  My attention was caught by my new pictures on the wall and I read the words again, "Eat Real Food".  I thought, "Geez.  Even that damn print is judging me!"  No.  Really and truly, I thought, "yes.  Yes, we will."  I shook off my fatigue and made do with what I had: half frozen chicken thighs that took a heck of a lot longer to cook on the grill than they would have, had I defrosted them properly, and which lacked the lemony freshness that a proper marinade would have given them, but my menu came off well and it was good.  And real.  And real good.  Everyone ate it - my oldest had seconds and thirds of the chicken, my youngest had seconds and thirds of the "[s]ticks" (asparagus) and "mmmargh" (tomatoes) and my middle child ate just what was put on her plate and no more. 

So my new, judge-y lithograph saved our dinner the other night.  I am glad I have it hanging on the wall to remind me what is important to me.  Yes, I get frustrated with our food culture and yes, I get frustrated with simply having to cook ALL the time, but I also realize that feeding my family well is one of my top priorities.  I actually like seeing them enjoy a good meal and I really like knowing that I cooked it.  Real food - sometimes it doesn't have to be all that hard; it just takes a little bit of an effort.