Visiting the Red Zone

 GO BUCKY!

It finally has come to this.  I took my oldest daughter on a college tour last week and found out something I already knew.  I miss being in college and it isn't 1982 anymore. 

 

We toured my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  The campus is still beautiful, the student body still diverse, the trek up Bascom Hill still exhausting, the Memorial Union still has music on Friday nights, the classes are still huge, the professors are still boring, Memorial Library still has study cages, Babcock ice cream is still delicious and I still miss it all.

 

Never mind that my parents told me that it would be the best 4 years of my life.  Like most things in life, you don't appreciate that fact while you are experiencing it.  You are too busy living it and think it will go on forever. I miss living on Langdon street and planning Friday classes around Thursday night escapades.  I miss the Rathskeller although I can go there anytime.  I miss my sorority sisters and communal living.  With that living came housekeepers who cleaned our rooms, made our meals and adorable frat boys who served them to us.  Yeah, I miss that.

 

I miss the school spirit.  During the information session, the speaker told us about the UW games and the student spirit but she summed it all up when she told us that when on a walking tour, a young man came flying by on his bicycle, flipped it into a bush and jumped up safely yelling "GO BADGERS"!  You don't get that everywhere.  As a side note, you might want to take a look at this clip from You Tube just to be reminded of what a football Saturday at Camp Randall is like.

 

Click here: YouTube - Jump Around Badgers  

 

I miss visiting my Dad who worked on campus as a fund-raiser for the UW.  Maybe that has something to do with my "there is no better school for the price" attitude.  I also figured out why he was in that line of work.  Being in that environment keeps you young and in touch and a continual student of life.

 

Back to the classes are still boring.  Sarah and I audited an Art History class as part of our time on campus.  I was amazed at how many students use laptops to take notes during lectures.  It is so simple now.  Plus, there is the added bonus of variety.  When you get bored, you can quick check your I-Tunes library right before you doze off for a few minutes.  Not like the old days.  We noticed that those who did not have laptops, in between taking copious notes, were either reading the comics or doing Sudoku.

 

When I sat there during the information session, there were people there from all over the U.S.   I wanted to jump up and shout "I am an Alumnus.  Of course you want to go here!  Why do you need convincing?  There is no better school!  Just ask me, ASK ME!"  But at the risk of embarrassing my daughter more than I already do, I thought better of it.  I hope that she decides to go here but I will leave that decision up to her.  I will tell her that it will be the best 4 years of her life and she will ignore me.  I will go hang out with her on the Terrace and live vicariously through her life.  I know she will be close but I will miss my first born being gone.  But at least I know what she will be experiencing.  UW pride.  The kind you get when you are singing the Varsity song at any athletic event and you know you've earned the right to sing it.

 

Between you and me...she looks great in red.

Semi-Lame Ass Cooking

For those who know me best, cooking has not been one of my strengths.  I always understood the concept of cooking.  I just never understood how it applied to me.  If I couldn't boil it, microwave it or order it from a nearby eatery you could forget about a fussy meal.  A few free afternoons, remote firmly in my hand , I wound up on the Food Channel.  Imagine my surprise, weeks later, to find out that I am officially now a “foodie” who times her day by the Food Channel programming.  I buy kitchen gadgets and take classes from Williams-Sonoma.  I enjoy reading the forwards of cookbooks.  I watch The Barefoot (rum makes everything better) Contessa everyday at 4:00p.m.  How can you not love someone who says "the cupcakes are just a vehicle for the frosting"?  I marvel at her casualness in the kitchen as well as her dedication to her husband of 38 years.  Dear Jeffrey.  Mind you they live apart during the week.  That may have something to do with it.  Now I only buy "good" vanilla and "good" mayonnaise.  I no longer am afraid of roasting winter vegetables.  I have learned that garlic is my friend.  But most of all, I have learned the importance of lemon zest.  How empty my life was until now.  Dear God, perfect ice cubes again!

 

I grew up in the comfort food generation.  Every good Midwestern mother tailored her cooking skills by picking up recipes in women's magazines while waiting for her children at scouting meetings.  Staples at our house were macaroni and cheese, baked spaghetti, tater tot casserole, chicken and rice and the dreaded meatloaf.  My brother should have been a surgeon.  He could dissect my mom's meatloaf on his plate into three separate piles:  meat, onions and the mystery pile.  He could stuff her brussel sprouts under the table into a secret crevice until they dried out and fell to the linoleum.  I can still hear my Dad shouting "Bobby, do you know why the dog won't come out from underneath the kitchen table?"  Mind-bending and appetizing at the same time.  But I digress.

 

 "It's sooooooper simple..."

 

I  have become addicted to the food shows in the afternoon hours and just when I get used to the idea of really cooking and creating good meals, comes Sandra Lee, Miss Thing, with Semi-Homemade cooking.  My first thought was that she had a sugar daddy who bought mama a time slot on cable.  Bingo.  Just when I get clear focus on cooking techniques comes a show that teaches us how to trick our friends into thinking the meal was home-made.  God, I've been doing that for years.  Teach me something new.  My mind is going and I hate doing Sudoku.  I need visual stimulation.  Everything Sandra teaches is "super simple."  I need complicated now.  Is that so wrong?  I need tips that are more elaborate than "use a hot pan, it helps the food cook quicker."  Furthermore, I don't want to hear one more time that she "loves butter and sour cream."  No way.  Not with that size 2 figure.  Except for the figure, I honestly think I could do a better job with this time slot. 

 

And what about the tablescapes?  Besides putting together a crappy dinner, we are then supposed to coordinate it with a hideous tablescape and some sort of exotic "tini" to drink.  Every episode showcases an alcoholic beverage to go with the lame-ass, I mean, semi-homemade dinner.  Hope the kids can do the dishes while mommy takes a power nap after dinner.     

                                   

 

                                                                                              

 

I can see it now.  Housewives across America serving boxed food for dinner, drunk off their butts with hideous tablescapes that are so overdone.  Kids!  Don't touch the Eiffel Tower display!  It goes with our frozen, I mean home-baked French Fries.  Anyone care for a "Eiffeltini?"  Bien sur!  Mais oui!  Ooohhh la la lame ass....

Give me The Barefoot Contessa and a bottle of Rum anyday.  Please.

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