It felt like, one day I was eating caviar toasts and baby lamb chops washed down with a few glasses of Veuve Clicquot Champagne with my P.R. agency, and the next I was a stay at home mom with a 22 month old and a new baby. I sat terrified most days waiting for my husband to come home from work. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I remember envying my husband’s commute to work. I would have done anything to be alone for 35 minutes listening to music and drinking my French Roast winding through the Berkeley hills.
I have moments of nostalgia when I dream of holding one of my babies in my arms again, but mostly I am just happy to have survived those early years. My mother died when I was young and my dear mother-in-law didn’t sugar coat it when she told me, “I’ve already raised my kids.” I had a magical nanny when I worked South of Market in San Francisco and I was able to retain her a few hours a week when the girls were very small, but mostly I was very much on my own. One of the more hilarious activities was taking the baby and two year old grocery shopping. The small town where I live has a good number of retirees, so I was constantly approached by these lovely women and told to cherish every moment. I would be so exhausted and both kids would be screaming and all I could think was they must have amnesia! They were also the generation of Mother’s Little Helper (click for the Rolling Stone’s famous song). The rest of us had to white knuckle our way through it.
I discovered that taking the kids to dinner was not a night off for me, so I started cooking more at home (see my author page on Amazon to read more about my book and easy kid friendly recipes). At about 5 o’clock I would put the littles in front of the T.V. and mix myself one very tall drink and take it outside and water my flowers, and then I would start dinner. With kids under foot and a stiff drink taking the edge off it was important to have some forgiving recipes. I had wanted to give my book, Real Food, the title Easy Recipes for Drunk Moms, but my editor, Neo Gariby didn’t want my readers to get the wrong impression. However, I’ve recently stumbled upon Thug Kitchen which I love and now I don’t think Drunk Moms was such a bad title after all. I especially adore the bad language! I’ve sworn off swearing to be a better role model for my children, but there is nothing like colorful words when describing cooking and eating good food. Once I perfected my evening routine things got easier. If I’m not nostalgic for the screaming grocery store scenes, I am for those quiet summer evenings with the flower pots spilling over with fragerant flowers and my children fed and bathed. I would read to them and then tuck myself into bed at 9 p.m. Those really were the best of times and because I am not the sort of person to ignore good advise I really did cherish every moment.
Sydney 