Thursday, March 15, 2007

Five-Year Bitch

I mean "Itch." Five-Year Itch Meme.
I've been tagged by Tammy to reveal things about myself in five-year increments, in years ending with -2 or -7...
At first I hesitated, because my list of increments would be so long (wouldn't wanna bore you), but then I decided some of you whippersnappers might like seeing what life was like for a future food blogger back in the pre-Pop-Tart days.
(Yes, there were "pre-Pop-Tart" days! Pop-Tarts didn't just suddenly bloom on the earth 6,000 years ago and walk with the dinosaurs. They evolved!)

1952: Adlai Stevenson is mad, and I eat. Chocolate. That's Crisco in the can, by the way, because this was in the days before frosting evolved into its canned form. Mm. Crisco frosting.

1957: I'm living in Hawaii now, picking papayas off the tree in our backyard. Still not mad, although my brother pisses me off now and then by acting unevolved.

1962: First year of junior high school, and praying my boobs would evolve. Diet: largely tostadas and anything with avocados.

1967: Growth spurt! Craig Claiborne is messing with my mother's kitchen, in which I am a contented galley slave, learning evolved Continental cuisine. So swank.

1972: I ought to be graduating from college now, but I have sneaked off to Japan to taste salmon roe (urk!!), cuttlefish (yark!!) and other pre-evolutionary foods.

1977: One marriage down, one to come. The new prospect has bold kitchen skills and likes Devo.

1982: We are newlyweds in Florida, where cockroaches and mosquitos have failed to evolve from Volkswagen-sized creepiness down to more acceptable (and familiar) urban proportions. I have just tried raw oysters for the first time.

1987: Some cervical cells have interpreted "evolution" all wrong and have grown out of control; surgery puts a stop to that. I am letting Thom Fox feed me as often as possible.

1992: We've moved to Marin County, where the food revolution is lagging. Cooking begins in earnest.

1997: Uh-oh. Office job. Lousy lunches, and Jack Daniels with colleagues for dinner. I spend way too many weekend hours cooking special-diet meals for my ailing dog, which means my own diet has devolved.

2002: Bush has stolen the White House, my madness has evolved to epic proportions, and I eat very well. Coincidence?

2007: Food blogging! You say you want an evolution? I'm happy and I eat.

20 comments:

Stacie said...

mmmm...Crisco straight from the can!! Life is very good for Lil' Miss Cookiecrumb!! Where's the 80's pics? Permed hair? And a happy ending too... yay!

Anonymous said...

That photo is perfection. I love it from the glint in your eyes down to your lil' frilly socks. So cute!

p.s.
As a toddler, I used to climb onto our countertop to sneak sugar from the bowl in the upper cupboard. I was easily caught as it was harder for me to get down. Thud!

Anonymous said...

Oh. My. GOD! That is the cutest picture ever. From your maniacal look to the perfectly not-yet-retro kitchen. Oh, and the clearly trans-fat-ful can of frosting. :-) Glad to see you and frosting have evolved well together.

shuna fish lydon said...

as usual, all guns blazing sister!

you rock. you are my renewed hero. here's to all that lankiness produces, or doesn't!

Pamela said...

HAH! Truly adorable, and a trip down Memory Lane as well. That could be me on that chair, although my hair was curlier and I always wore corduroy overalls when I "cooked".

Oh, and that *is* a Hamilton Beach MixMaster is it not??!? My mama had one, too . . .

Dagny said...

Thankfully for you it was Crisco. I am still trying to get over the chocolate Ex-lax debacle. How was I to know at age two that it wasn't candy? A few years ago, I finally realized that this explains my aversion to chocolate.

Loved reading your evolution. It seemed much more wholesome than anything I would write.

Civic Center said...

Well, that was interesting, and I disagree with Dagny, it wasn't at all wholesome.

Kevin said...

CC,
Great fun!

Peggasus said...

HA!

I had forgotten about countertops with aluminum trim. We had them too, and a matching table as well!

Instead of eating Crisco, I chipped my tooth after climbing on the aluminum-edged counter and trying to pry open a jar of Bosco with my teeth. That tiny chip (on my front tooth, of course) is still there.

K Allrich said...

What a mad and fab eating history. Well done!

Anita (Married... with dinner) said...

Ohhhhhh that's just too perfect of a photo. I think we need to have a "portrait of the blogger as a young foodie" meme.

cookiecrumb said...

Stacie: My dad used to call me the Crisco Kid. I'd spread that stuff on bread and eat it.
(How'd you know about the permed hair!!!???)

Melissa: Glint? Diabolical glare is more like it. Oh, god, I wish my legs were still that shapely.
PS: My mom used to keep the sugar cubes for ladies' tea parties in the ground-level buffet cabinet! Score!

Sean: Yeah. Maniacal. And that kitchen? Shiny new; the real thing.

Shuna: Yo! Lankiness prevails (even more so today; check out the gams on baby me).

Spitzmaus: You are correct! MixMaster. My mom's heavy brown bowl is on the mixing stand, but if you click the pic, you can see the original white glass bowl behind. (Corduroy overalls... swoon. There I am in my brother's castoff shirt and some decidedly droopy whities.)

Dagny: I feel for you. There were bad kids in grade school who would fob that stuff off on unsuspecting victims.
Wholesome? You may have noticed I entirely skipped talking about college and grad school! And high school, come to think of it. :D

SFMike: Yeah! See?
(Mike, it's outdoor deck weather; hint, hint.)

Kevin: Tag! You wanna play?

Peggasus: Precisely! Why, the 60-year-old house we just sold still had those counters and battered aluminum.
(I have a chipped tooth, too. Yo-yo. 'Nother story.)

Karina: Tag! Your turn!

Anita: I like it! That's the only photo I have, but I've just put the message out to my parents to do a search. Neat.

tammy said...

Wow, what a devilish grin! How perfect. You're smiling and eating, but yet, you're MAD.

That was fun. And not at all long and boring. Thanks for playing!

cookiecrumb said...

Tammy: Yep, guess I've always been mad.
Thanks for tagging me.

Katie said...

I remember crisco....and when pop tarts were so new they were a treat!
I used to like my finger, scoop up butter then dip in into the sugar bowl....behind my mother's back, of course.
Great time line...when you were in Florida did you happen to meet a cockroach named Max? I lost him there in the 80's

mary grimm said...

I grok that we are close contemporaries! (sorry--I've been rereading STranger in a STrange Land). I know that dinette-set chair, and those (lace-trimmed? embroidered?) socks.

Anonymous said...

awesomeness!

hawaii, annoying brothers, devo, oysters....yea!

cookiecrumb said...

Katie: And I totally skipped talking about Tang.
(I know Max. He moved in with us.)

Lucette: Generational sistah-hood!
(I think those socks merely had a cool pattern machine-knitted into the cuff... Cute, though.)

Kat: Yeah, mostly awesomeness. Plus divorce, cancer, dropping out of school, cool stuff... Judicious editing. Still. Happy!

Catherine said...

got seriously behind on my blog reading! this is wonderful! great photo!

cookiecrumb said...

Catherine: You are too kind!

Sher: Something about ultra-brief paragraphs spaced five years apart... you can really make a humdrum life sound good.