Northside Woman

Step into my kitchen for the real ‘chef challenge’

By DEBBIE JOHNSON
HippieChickChronicles.com

I love to watch cooking shows. I don’t know why, because I can hardly call my handiwork in the kitchen “cooking” any more. I do get a chuckle out of the “chef’s challenges” shows though. You know the ones. They are given a “surprise” secret ingredient and have to prepare a dish out of it. The “judges” then critique it.

I have a new show for the networks to consider. A chef has to come into my house and get up at the same time as I do. The first challenge is to put together lunches for two bottomless-pit teens. The fruit in the lunch can’t get smashed or bruised. The bread can’t be the same as yesterday. One teen likes honey mustard, the other only mayo and yellow mustard. The contestants will need to include something crunchy and something sweet. The teens only use brown paper bags, so no thermoses are allowed. They must also include in the teen girl’s bag a high protein snack to eat after school in the car on the way to swim practice. The same refrigeration rules apply.

While it may seem out of order, they now have to prepare a breakfast that the teens will eat. The teen girl is really picky and will eat something one day, only to say “I hate that!” the very next day. As soon as the kids are out the door, all planning and cooking and cleaning must stop. They must go somewhere else as I leave for work at this point. The chef must return at 5:30 p.m. to plan a meal using only ingredients in my refrigerator, freezer and pantry. The contestants cannot bring anything with them. They must have the meal finished in one hour, which is when the hungry teens begin to complain of hunger pains.

They thought cooking for critics was hard? Please! The chefs use a fully stocked pantry, many times have assistants to chop, clean and plan. They don’t have three people who have a “taste” for three different things, then complain if the menu selections don’t satisfy their hankerings. They also don’t have a dog circling their feet every step of the process.

Yes, I am reading your mind. I should plan and purchase all necessary items to have on hand. This would make all meal preparations easier. Smoother. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes, I get a meal all set and one or more of my family complains. Chef’s Challenge? Bring it on! As matter of fact, those contestants must compete against seasoned mom/dad home chefs! Now that is a show I’d watch!

Debbie Johnson is a Milton mom of two and the writer of HippieChickChronicles.com and EyeRollDiaries.com. She has been married for 20 years and manages her husband’s dental office. Johnson also co-founded the Milton Sweet Tea Society.

Paper or plastic?

What’s your reading preference?

BY HEIDI BRITZ
eyerolldiaries.com

My mother read to me from a very young age and nurtured a love for books. In my attic are volumes of the Bobbsey Twin mysteries and the complete Laura Ingalls Wilder series from my childhood. My mom used to come in my room to make sure I wasn’t up too late reading, but I would often hide a flashlight under my pillow and stuff a blanket under my door to read through the night. I would stumble, bleary eyed and exhausted the next morning to the breakfast table. The jig was up and the flashlight confiscated, until I could find where she had hidden it.

Libraries and bookstores are my personal crack den (I know, nerd alert!). The smell of new ink, the images on the covers and the stories that take me to places I might never know of otherwise draw me in. So when the buzz about e-books and e-readers started a few years ago, I staunchly refused to even consider such blasphemy! “Those aren’t books!” I harrumphed. But I was wrong.

I became the crow-eating owner of a Kindle and a new world was opened to me! I do miss the beautiful imagery on the covers and the crack of bending back a virgin binding, but not schlepping around a five pound tome that seems to be what most of my reading is weighing these days. My only complaint is that the e-readers aren’t waterproof, so I can’t read them in the tub. Other than that, I love it. I just slip the Kindle into my purse and off we go!

I especially appreciated this portability as I was waiting for my car to be repaired for six hours one Saturday. I gorged myself on the first installment of “The Hunger Games” (and went on to download and read the other two books in the series in three days). No waiting in line to buy or order a popular book, no 20 plus dollars for the hardcover first edition. Just click on Amazon and poof, the book of my dreams! It’s the words I love to read, regardless of the packaging they are delivered in, be it paper or plastic.

How about you? Are you an old-school book holdout or an e-reader?

Heidi Britz is a mom, speech therapist and aspiring writer in the Alpharetta area. You can find her chauffeuring her boys around, wrangling her dog or at her blogs:  fallingdowntherabbithole.com or eyerolldiaries.com.