A Slice of Life
I should’ve known the dinner would be doomed, making it on the wrong day.
My eighth-grader, Kayla, and I were food shopping and joking about the small rotation of dinners I’ve made since Pre-K. Some do meatless Monday, or taco Tuesday. You could count the variety of meals I usually make on one hand. Well, almost.
To give one lame excuse, I work well over an hour away and get home late most nights. So we planned on tacos. She picked out soft tortillas and other ingredients. A few days later I got the ground meat and shredded cheese. I thought everything was good to go. Kayla was home from school, I sautéed the veggies and she helped to cook the ground meat with Cumin, Paprika and the other good spices. I had the shredded lettuce, tomatoes, rice, and soft taco tortillas.
She said, “Where’s the guacamole? Where’s the sour cream?”
Ay Chihuahua! We have an abundant avocado tree in our backyard but I hadn’t picked any recently, leaving time to ripen.
Her friend Gabs was on her way over to work on a school project and join in on this tremendous taco Thursday, so I ran out to the nearest food mart to find the missing ingredients. Not wanting to go all the way to Publix, I made three stops and only came up with the sour cream and Old El Paso hard taco shells. This was surely not going to be one traditional Mexican meal.
Coming home without the guac, I said we’ll just have to make do and next time I’ll make sure to have all the ingredients.
While taking the ceramic dish out of the microwave, filled with refried beans from a can (as I mentioned, this was an authentic Mexican meal) I don’t know how, but it slipped from my hands and fell.
Splat.
Refried beans dangling from the kitchen cabinets, on the floor, and shards of that nice little ceramic dish we used to have.
I cleaned it all up and vacuumed the floor just in time before Gabs came over.
Kayla started putting together her soft taco, whilst complaining about the lack of guac and the wrong kind of rice. (It didn’t help to gently remind her of the children starving all over the world who didn’t even have these ingredients to make a taco.)
Gabs was making her taco, I was enjoying mine, and while we were getting more beef about the terrible dinner, someone used their resourceful survival skills and brought out a jar of Nutella spread and a banana for a more delicious soft taco.
