My Sunroom

I’m going to have to slap several days of restaurant reviews on my blog at a time for a few days, because my computer was doing naughty things and wouldn’t let me get on the internet for several days. The problem even stumped The Techie Man Who Shares My Waterbed, But Not My Computer. The Dear Man spent over an hour last night waiting on the phone for Roadrunner technical support. Suffice it to say, The Man was NOT happy. My computer is now fixed. Don’t ask. I didn’t.

The Man Who Can Also Do Electrical Stuff had a busy weekend attaching wires to outlets or switches in my new kitchen. So I suggested that we eat one dinner at home. The Man is beginning to resent the amount of time it takes to eat out every night. Amazing ... it wasn’t the money that got to him first. And, of course, it wasn’t the lack of vegetables and healthy cuisine. It was the time involved.

So, I said to The Man as we sat down in our sunroom, next to the refrigerator and the microwave, "What do you think of this ambiance?" to which he replied, "I like that the tables seem to be far apart. I can’t hear anyone else’s conversations." It was true. All you could hear was the hum of the refrigerator which is temporarily sitting right next to the table. "The interior ambiance lacks some class," he added, "but the view makes up for it." I had not looked at my yard in this competitive context before. He was right. My gardens and the fall leaves waving through the skylight make a much nicer backdrop for dining than any view we have experienced on Bluemound Road. And take my word for it -- the bathrooms are definitely cleaner.

"The food here is delicious," The Man Who Is No Fool added. It was my homemade lasagna, which I had frozen before the demolition of my kitchen. But even frozen lasagna was a tricky meal to serve sans kitchen. The French bread had to be heated in the toaster oven, which is on the same circuit in the sunroom as the microwave. So I preheated the toaster oven, stuck in the bread, unplugged that appliance, plugged in the microwave and heated the slices of lasagna. Meanwhile, I washed the romaine lettuce in the bathroom sink and tossed a Caesar salad on a couple of paper plates, using some of Grasch’s grated parmesan and their homemade croutons and Newman’s salad dressing. I served this meal on paper plates as well, as it is difficult to wash decent sized plates or a salad serving bowl in a bathroom sink. And I am not willing to carry all these dishes downstairs and back up from the basement laundry tubs, even if I thought those tubs were clean enough in which to do dishes.

While I was complaining about the inconvenience of making this simple meal, I couldn’t help but recall a tour we took last week in the Townships of South Africa, where hundreds of thousands of people still live in shacks made of odd pieces of junk.

Here in Brookfield I am annoyed because I have no deep sink in which to wash a salad bowl.
They have no running water -- or plumbing.

I have two appliances on the same circuit.
They have no electricity at all. They have no kitchen. And not just for a couple of months.

Let me show you a picture I took while on a tour of Khayelitsha, a suburb of gorgeous, cosmopolitan Cape Town. Keep this picture in your head if you ever decide to remodel your kitchen. Think how fortunate we are.

Even though I am...
Kitchenless in Brookfield