Turning Heads

What was the one sentence that turned me from just-another-vegetable-buying-customer, to a focal point for all the ladies at the green grocer's?

What were the five words, I ever so daringly pronounced,  that sentenced me to looks of despise and superiority, to up and down stares of disapproval ?

What was the question that made three female heads move in steady synchronized motions, away from the piles of fruits and vegetables they were filling bags from, to shameful old me?

I dared to ask :" Do you have PEELED garlic? "

Ah! The horror, the dismay, the disappointment in today's generation of lazy housewives, the fear their sons might end up with someone like me, who did not even peel her own garlic, the pride that their daughters are well trained,that they would never do such an atrocity, you could see all that in three pairs of scornful contemptuous eyes!!

"Well, Ladies!" I should have said: "YES, I do use peeled garlic, I hate the smell of garlic and can never get it out of my fingers if I peel it myself, I see no shame in buying it peeled and packed in small packages for my convenience, and I dont like it to compete with my perfume. Dear Ladies, especially you, whose make up took longer to wear than my mlookhieh took to cook, I buy my garlic peeled and am not ashamed of it. You are all actually welcome to snoop through my kitchen cabinets, except I am worried you girls might get a stroke or something: 

-For my tomatoe sauces, I use canned peeled and diced tomatoes.

-For white beans(fasoolia) I use canned ones instead of having to soak dried ones overnight, and they taste just as good.

-I occasionally use five minute pudding mixes for instant sweets for kids.

-Cake mixes are not uncommon in my kitchen, neither are ready frostings.

-For quiches and pies, I often use frozen doughs.

-For pizza, I often buy the dough from the bakery.

-I get my meats, chicken and fish fully cleaned and cut in the desired form for every meal.

-There's always a box or two of frozen Nabil Products for fast meals.

-I buy frozen fries and bake them in the oven instead of wasting an  hour peeling and frying.

-Macaroni and cheese is not a favorite of mine, but as long as kids like it, then with a side of vegetables, it qualifies as a meal each now and then.

-Shushbarak..one food I can never make myself. The Jordanian Women's Union make excellent ones, just boil the yoghurt, and Presto!

So ladies, you can look down on me all you want, but if you have this much time to balance the seven colors of the rainbow on your eyelids, ever-so-symmetrically, then you might as well peel your own garlic! I for one, don't!

( Same looks as I ask the guy not to put the sealed garlic bag inside the apricaot bag), well, Forgive me People, for I have sinned!

June 2007