Home cooked

"What's THAT smell?"

It was 5:30. After School Sport #1 was over and there was just enough time to finish math homework and wolf down some form of sustenance before rushing off to make it to After School Sport #2.

It was a hopeful sort of question. A smell that reminds you that hunger can creep up on a person. Another reminder that in the not-too-distant past this time combined with this smell might make a kid guess that dinner was almost ready.

"Your father is making supper," I responded as I hung up the car keys and pulled off my coat. As usual, I have a flair for stating the obvious. The air all around us held a mixture of aromas: tomatoes, garlic, onion. … It is the scent of warmth and comfort.

Modern family life sometimes requires such details to be defined. In our house, The Dad is the chef and sink unclogger. The Mom does the baking, and the driving, and the laundry and the cleaning of the pots and pans. She even does the mowing of the lawns.

But we'll leave that for another season.

Since his departure on business a few weeks ago, The Dad's kitchen has produced only one three-part meal: Baked salmon, lemon asparagus, and rice. It was an unusual Saturday night when the calendar square was uncommonly bare, and an extraordinary effort by The Mom.

For the remainder of his absence, the things we ate that resembled food made their way from freezer to microwave in roughly three-minute intervals six times a day. 

Tasteless, time-conscious tidbits that barely nourish anything. 

"I'd say it was pasta of some kind, but I could be mistaken." 

Of course, I had no first-hand knowledge or proof of purchase in the form of supermarket receipt or empty reusable totes sitting in the hallway waiting to be refolded. 

But my nose told me the meat would be some fancy sausage. Probably the spicy kind, the boy would exile to the edge of his plate before quietly flicking it piecemeal to the pooch. 

He wouldn't complain. 

It's not his style. 

He'll just quietly eat what he likes and visit the kitchen later ... when everyone has moved on from dinner into watching "their" shows. 

He'll find himself a yogurt from the fridge or frozen shrimp from the freezer. A ravenous appetite can be a powerful motivator in learning how to "cook like mom cooks." 

Though some might say "assemble" or "thaw and mix with ramen."

It's only a matter of time until they realize that when left alone, dinner for most moms means stopping at the gas station and picking up a bag of popcorn ... or Funyuns.

Still, we manage to muster enough motherly concern to ask the kids what they had for lunch, and clutch our pearls-less throats when they answer something along the lines of "a bag of Skittles and a Coke."

Our popcorn dinners, we rationalize, have, at the very least, a coating of cheese. We may not be growing children, even if we are expanding as adults.

Of course, we moms aren't fooling anyone.

And then it occurs to me, as he rolls up his sleeves and starts to wash his hands, he's beginning to take after his father.

"Well ... THAT smell is definitely burned popcorn. What do you say we make some potstickers?"