hanging up the apron

no one cares anymore…  these farmers?  nope… could care less about food… you know what they do care about?  me not getting in their way as they are driving out of a field…

I get it… I see the way they toss the supper bags around like they are heaving sandbags preparing for a flood and I think – I’d be over my meal-in-the-field’ fun too…

harvest began August 17 and ‘ended’ on September 20… actual harvesting days ended up being 24… very good year time wise…

yet, even on a good year, they are all done with suppers…

they try to smile and say thank you… but I can see it in their eyes…  the love is gone and they have moved on…

no pausing for pictures or light-hearted joking while we stand around as I hand them their supper bags…  instead I get covered in dust trying to grab a few photos for my grandpa and the farmer’s grandma to enjoy…

so you know what I do?  I stop caring…  take that…

I compare it to how you serve wine at a party… you buy a few nice bottles and then a box… you give your guests one glass of the $17 wine you splurged on and then any refills are boxed wine… they don’t even notice…

earlier in harvest they received fruit salad with a lovely homemade dressing on it…  late in harvest, just fruit… no dressing… deal with it…

dessert you ask?  packaged brownie mix from Costco…  I didn’t even dust icing sugar on it like I normally would have…

it does have similarities to what my love life was like, before I met the farmer of course… all butterflies and excitement for the first few days… I’d be making mixed tapes or cd’s with my favourite songs, writing in my journal at length and orchestrate many attempts to ‘show up’ at the location my ‘prey’ would be at in order to be around them…

then I would start to notice how they laughed, or what they laughed at, or how they chewed their food, or their body odour, or their appearance in general…  and the ‘sparkle’ would be gone…

then it becomes a game of putting as little effort into the relationship as possible in order to get the other person to break up with you so you aren’t the bad person…

this is also known as marriage… only difference is we have this rule you can’t break up…

this is where I find myself at the end of every harvest… breakup zone…

I see the farmer’s swinging their supper bags around like they are Little Red Riding Hood on their way to Grandma’s House and I think….  ‘oh I see you shaking my pie into pudding…  I’ll show you’…

so I buy the cheapest food possible at Costco…  and spend a few minutes throwing it together… can’t hurt me if I was trying to break up with you as well!

turns out, it works!  after they had this meal the farmer has told me every night since that they don’t need supper!

now… if I had spent a lot of time on that last supper, how devastated would I have been to hear that news… I would have doubted my cooking ability and my self-worth would have been in the crapper…  but no, I guarded my heart and basically broke up with the farmer before he could break up with me…

so, to all the cooks out their slaving away for the farmers…  don’t you dare end on a high note…  no one will appreciate it…  their thoughts have moved on to football, hockey and hunting… they would eat anything at this stage of the game…

save your fancy cooking for Thanksgiving… you have relatives to impress…