I see this trait in my ten year-old daughter who gets an idea and turns it into plans that rival the building of the Great Wall of China.
"Well the school ran out flowers for the Valentine grams so I am going to make my own."
"That's nice honey."
"Yea, and I am going to sell them at the gym. I am going to stand outside, you know, kind of make a booth, and sell them to the people who walk in."
"Umhumm."
"They will get a card, and a flower, and some candy. Oh, and I am going to need a place to store them, so can I use your office?"
"Okay."
"Yea, I and I am going to need some money for supplies so can I work around the gym, and you pay me?"
"Sure."
And the plan continues to grow. I smile and nod in agreement with everything, because I am certain that along with Girl Scout cookie sales that have already fizzled, piano practice I have to badger her into, and an abandoned quilting project from the last inclement weather day, that this too will take its place in the bone yard of past excitements.
And I smile too, because she got every ounce of short-lived over-zealousness from me.
A perfect example is currently sitting in a brown cardboard box on top of my pantry. Last month I found an online store that sold powered egg whites, in bulk. When I read that a cup egg whites contains nearly eighty grams of protein, I decided they were a perfect addition to my food program. So I ordered five pounds. Yes, five full pounds.
I had them delivered to the gym and when they arrived, I was so excited, I opened the package right outside my office. I peered into the box at a large blue trash bag containing a fine, white powder. When I opened the bag, a small puff of dusty powder billowed over my hands and face. I coughed.
The guy on the nearest treadmill glanced over, "What is that??" he said suspiciously.
"Egg whites." The dust on my cheeks hid my blush as I tried to contain the cloud of powder that had escaped. I folded the bag down, closed the flaps on the box and hauled it out to my car.
When I got home, I peered into the blue trash bag again. Five pounds really was quite a bit. It really wasn't as appetizing as I'd expected either. In fact I wasn't convinced this substance was edible at all. But when my husband got home and helped me haul the box up to the top of the pantry, I faked enthusiasm.
"This stuff is great. I can put it in everything and beef up the protein content."
"Umhummm." My husband has long since stopped questioning my sanity.
My "egg white phase", as it will undoubtedly be called around the dinner table twenty years from now, is now about a month old. In that time, I have turned every dish, every casserole, every formerly finger-licking meal into a meringue. Worst yet, my mess ups have gone public.
While my cousins were visiting recently, I made chicken and dumplings, usually a slam dunk: gravy-thick soup bottom topped with a salty sweet biscuit. This time, though, I added a scoop of egg white powder and turned the dumplings into thirsty cement. Upon chiseling under the tenacious disc of dumpling, I discovered carrots, celery and chicken bits lying brothless, like dead fish, on the bottom of the Crockpot. We went out that night and left the kids to forage the fridge for leftovers.
Even though I have modified recipes, cajoled neighbors into taking a bag of the white stuff (show up with hot banana bread and you get a very different reception than you do holding out a baggie of powdered egg whites), snuck it into the kids' oatmeal, I still have nearly five full pounds of this damn stuff left.
This last week I made my last valiant attempt at being creative with this massive blue bag of egg whites, and I started inventing things that would not blow my diet. First, I tried "chocolate covered cherries." I envisioned myself a featured contributer in the Weight Watchers All Time Best Recipes book with this little number:
1 box sugar-free jello (cherry flavored)
1 T unsweetened cocoa
1/2 c. powdered egg whites.
Mix all dry ingredients together. Stir in one cup boiling water, then one cup cold water. Mix well, and let set up in the refrigerator for several hours.
What did I discover? Egg whites cook very quickly when you add boiling water. I ended up with mini omelets in a frothy, red paste. I made myself take a bite, gagged a little, and tossed it all in the trash. Elmo, the dog who has been known to eat ornaments off the Christmas tree, did not beg for a bite.
Last night was my last ditch attempt. I started with egg white power, added some (cold) water, and had my daughter hold the beaters on high while I slowly poured in another box of cherry sugar-free jello. Beautiful florescent pink peaks formed and we scooped out spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and baked them into cherry meringues. They emerged from the oven in such a gorgeous state that my culinary optimism returned. We left them to cool and went to bed.
However, hope faded. By the morning they had lost their loft, and sat collapsed and sighing into themselves. They reminded me of when, as an eight year-old, I had tried to chew a whole pack of watermelon Bubble Yum. When my jaw gave up and I spit it into the street, it looked like a huge pink slug, slowly dying on the pavement.
Out of curiosity, my daughter and I did try one of our "cherry meringue cookies," but promptly spit them out in the trash. Oddly, Elmo liked them. But because I cannot afford to replace my carpet, I have limited his consumption.
Leave it to my kid to have a plan for all those lumps of meringue, though. I came home late tonight after locking up the gym. Even though it was dark when I got out of the car, I could clearly see a glowing pink "HI" written in the concrete at our doorstep. Apparently, she'd used our cherry meringues as sidewalk chalk.
Right on.
(nearly) Five pounds of egg whites. Maybe Ebay.
3 comments:
WOW! Who knew egg whites and pink gelatin form the equivalent of a gypsum crayon. That kid's a smart cookie!
During my vegetarian college days, when I was also a raging pothead, and 50% of my part-time wages went to that silly plant, I learned to make the most of my groceries. Usually I would make a big wok-ful of stir-fried veggies and then have dinner to-go for several days. I had a girlfriend who was a master of the bean curd and had begun to convert me. I was finicky about its texture, though, preferring crisp and chewy strips. Long story short, I tossed in the tofu too early and did too much stirring. The result was a veg-tofu pudding--a lot of it. I had put half my week's produce into the single proverbial basket. So I ate it all over the course of the following few days.
Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention my over-zealousness. You think a pair of climbing shoes, a 35 mm camera, and a vat of powdered egg whites are bad? What about an entire SCUBA setup, of which the most important and technical equipment is obsolete? Worst yet I did that for a freaky ex-boyfriend, the most recent in a long line of men and boys who turned out to be gay or just acted like it.
You are brilliant as always and I have no doubt that Auds is a very lucky young woman for taking after her mother! Your writing is wonderful and I actually laughed out loud (Jake thinks I'm a kook, as usual), than sighed because I wish I there with you making lord know what out of those egg whites! Keep is up - you have a whole contingent of admirers who love you for who and what you are.
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