I leapt out of bed this Mother’s Day at 6:00, with a spring in my step, and a delightful plan. It included a delectable recipe from my latest issues of Martha Stewart LIVING. (Yes, that’s AM, uh-huh on Mother’s Day…MY day.)
As my loving family was still sleeping, bless their hearts, I pulled out my stainless steel bowls, whisk, and other utensils silently in preparation, as I didn’t want to wake them…the darlings.
I opened the refrigerator and extracted one fabulous looking orange to zest, and then began rummaging around for my nutmeg grater. (I don’t have an orange zester…not that I haven’t been invited to enough kitchenware parties to have scored one by now.) I softened the unsalted butter, and mixed in the freshly squeezed orange juice, the pure maple syrup, the coarsely ground salt and the orange zest. Doesn’t it sound scrumptious? Orange maple butter…Yum!
I rinsed the fresh blueberries and tossed them with sugar and set them aside as I whisked together the other ingredients. Who wouldn’t love corn meal in their pancakes?
One by one, the sleepy heads appeared in the kitchen and wandered off to watch CBS Sunday Morning while I finished preparing breakfast with that deep motherly love that makes having a family a blessing.
Our littlest guy was first up at the table with his plate of delicious goodness…and the lovely morning began to roll downhill from there.
“Why are there blueberries in my pancakes?” the little scamp asked. “Because Mommy made blueberry pancakes, Honey,” I replied, oozing love, or perhaps orange-maple butter. “But these berries are round!” Ummm OK…“Blueberries ARE round Sweetie, you like blueberries, like in muffins and bagels,” I deftly countered, beginning to lose just a hint of my motherly effervescence. “But I DON’T like THESE!” He proceeds to extract the blueberries from his pancakes with the precision of a neurosurgeon, careful to also remove any of the pancake that has come into contact with said blueberries.
“Fine,” I say to myself, “He has always been the picky eater of the bunch. Everyone else will simply devour them and beg for more,” I assure myself, only to be met with “Why do these blueberry pancakes taste like oranges? These taste funny. I’d rather have them without the blueberries, to be perfectly honest.” My oldest, has spoken, and my husband has grudgingly eaten his pancakes and begins pawing around behind me in the kitchen like a bear, looking for the bacon he knows is warming in the oven. “Where’s the bacon?”
“Fine, fine, FINE!!!” I growl, with an attitude that would send George Steinbrenner running for cover. Don’t believe me, just ask my kids. These are kids who have now heard Mommy throwing the F-bomb around the kitchen like it’s a super ball.
As I slam the pans and utensils around removing all traces of my Mother’s Day fiasco, my husband tells me he wished I had gotten moving a little sooner, as we are SUPPOSED to be driving out of town to shop for baseball equipment today, or have I fogotten. For those of you who may be asking, yes, he IS still alive. I see revenge as a dish best served cold. One that cold cocks you like a rogue pitch when you aren’t even in the batter’s box.
Seems to me somebody is turning 50 this year…(No it’s NOT me, and if you were entertaining that thought, let me just take the opportunity to say, F*#% you!, F*#% you very much!) Perhaps I will steal his ‘Chick Magnet’ shirt out of his closet to wear to the party he doesn’t want to have, and tell him there’s something we need to talk about…in front of his friends and family. Can you go to jail for causing someone to have a stroke as part of an elaborate joke?
Of course, if I throw a party, then I would have to see what else Ms. Martha has in the way of party food…Hmmmmm.
P.S. I should mention that at 11:03 my oldest son did tell me Happy Mother’s Day, and that he was sorry they weren’t happier about the pancakes, but that he thought I would want to know they really weren’t very good, since it seemed like I went to a lot of work, and he really appreciated the effort.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
