Friday, April 10, 199:

2 - North Shore News -

ee

Cooking? I'd rather be weeding

I'M GOING through a life
crisis, a trauma that leaves
me roaming through the
neighborhood at night with
my dog, asking myself:
“*Why is this happening to
me?”’

Catherine

JUST ADD WATER

I have lost all desire to cook.
My symptoms are chronic and
acute.

My massive mental block
against anything to do with mix-
ing bowls, casserole dishes or
(heaven help me) an oven has
caused me to alter the accepted
definition of meal preparation. To
me meal! preparation now means
making a pot of filter coffee and
opening a box of chocolate-
covered digestive biscuits.

1am terrorized by simple ques-
tions pertaining to food, such as
““What’s for dinner?”

On my more stable days, I
might respond to my hard-work-
ing husband with a buoyant:
“Hey why don’t we order in some
pizza?"’

On a bad day, my husband
(who actually does a lot of the
cooking around our house)
becomes the object of some really
menacing missiles about meals and

who should make them.

“Is there some natural or
imanmade law that specifies mak-
ing dinner is a female responsibili-
ty?” Lesk, daring him to answer.
(Note: if eny reader has done
come anthropologicai research in-
to a society where men do most of
the cooking, please contact me
through this newspaper.)

At other times, I pani. and ini-
tiate frantic deal-making “PU
vacuum, dusi, weed and 0 io the
recycling depot if you make din-
ner tonight.’”

Other symptoms. I open the
cupboard containing my
cookbooks and close it very
quickly.

[ whiz by the recipe columnists
in this newspaper and others and
say to myself: ‘‘Those recipes are
for other people. Peopie who can
cope with par-boiling.”’

Gourmet Magazine, which | see
at my parent's home, has taken
on a surreal quality. I look at
those sumptuous, exquisitely pres-
ented meals and think: ‘‘It’s im-
possible, | refuse io believe it. No
human being couid have prepared
that food.”

So acute is my resistance to cu-
linary activities that my standards
have sunk to an all-time low.

Recently, 1 brought brownies
from the frozen food section of a
local supermarket to a function
where home baking was expected
as the norm. I didn’t even try to
hide the packaging. I was
unapologetic.

I now consider camping food
acceptable dinner fare. What's
wrong with canned stew and
granola bars? Lots of nutrition
there, and it brings back happy
memories of all the gang around a
crackling campfire. Gee, you can’t
get that from Fettuccine Alfredo.

i have asked myself why. Why
this aversion to an activity that
most people seem to incorporate
quite naturally into their lives?
Why this consideration of cooking
as the occupation of masochists?

Could it be hormones? I've
blamed a lot of things on hor-
mones, like my hair going straight
after the birth of my son. Could a
hormonal upheaval explain my
tevulsion at the sight of a food
processor, or the plummeting of
my spirits when five o’clock
comes around?

Maybe I’ve come to hate cook-
ing because !'m lazy. Am 1 a thir-
tysomething yuppie brat who ex-
pects to cruise through life on
bistro fare and quality take-out
meals? No, it’s not laziness,
because I work really hard at
other things (like weeding) to stay

out of the kitchen.

Perhaps it’s a shift in priorities.
Food and its preparations
definitely used to be a priority for
me. | remember returning to
Canada from a year in France,
ready to cook for anyone and
everyone. My housemates at uni-
versity loved me. I couldn't stop
making chocolate mousse.

Whatever the reason for my
culinophobia, 1 know I must grit
my teeth and get back in the culi-
nary saddle again.

ve actually started preparing
simple fare as a means of getting

“back into the swing of things.
These simple meals tend to have
brown rice and curry as their

base. Brown rice and curry with
vegetables. Brown rice and curry
with shrimp. Brown rice and curry
with vegetables and shrimp.

I chose curry for its exotic
cachet. It gives the impression
you've created 4 meal and that
you've actually thought about a
main course for more than 30 se-
conds. My husband has started to
comment, with more than a hint
of concern, about my growing
dependence on curry.

Maybe he’s right to be worried.
Perhaps the curry is really a
smokescreen, a showy way of
hiding the fact that I don’t want
to re-enter the land of the grating.

Patients abuse system, too | Hillside destruction
an ill-conceived plan

Dear Editor:

I have been reading your arti-
cles, along with those in other
publications, regarding the doctors
and their present dispute with the
government. [It is about time
someone brought the other side of
the argument to the attention of
the public.

Unfortunately, as in all ‘profes-
sions, it is the minority of the

doctors who abuse the system who
give the profession a bad name.

The majority of doctors are
hard-working, dedicated and cer-
tainly earn every penny — they
make. Many are on call all hours
of the night as well as working
their office hours.

In addition, many weekends are
spent at meetings upgrading skills,
or sitting on committees.

Hillside decision will
affect entire community

Dear Editor:

I share the view with many
others in the community that it is
time for a little comman sense to
be a part of the proposed building
of the Caulfeild Middle School.
West Vancouver Schoo! Board’s
proposed plan to destroy their
newest and finest secondary
school is ill-conceived.

I and many other alumni of this
institution look upon it as more
than just a piece of valuable real
estate. We grew up with the
school and it with us. It is a sick
society that permits the destruc-
tion of a perfectly good school
after only serving the public for
such a short time.

I hope that my. children, being

fourth generation inhabitants to
this region, have the opportunity
to grow up with a new school they
ean call their own in Caulfeild.
But to raze a building that has so
much history and potential
doesn’t make sense.

IF the local politicians see to it
that the remaining portion of
West Vancouver is developed into
family oriented communities,
there will be plenty of need to
build a second middle school be-
fore too long.

tam pleased to see the beginn-
ings of public and open discussion
on this crucial matter.

Phil Millerd
Lions Bay

Iv’'s about time that some of the
blame be put on the patient.

1 am employed by a doctor on
the North Shore and am becoming
increasingly appalled at the waste
of money incurred by unnecessary
visits. We have become a society
that demands instant attention
and answers, and many times it is
the patient not the dector who
demands to see a specialist, or to
have a barrage of unnecessary
tests performed.

The walk-in clinics are yet
another culprit of the waste of
money and, again, a result of the
demands of the patient for instant
attention. Patients want the con-
venience of after-work diagnosis,
but in many cases are not satisfied
with the doctor’s diagnosis and
duplicate the visit and the costs by
visiting their own doctor within 24
hours, to seek reassurance.

If we all used a little more
common sense and did not go
running to the doctor at the first
sign of a sniffle, the system would
not be abused.

We might then appreciate our
doctors for what most of them are
— a dedicated group of profes-
sionals, not overpaid ‘‘money
grabbers,”’ who have now had
their democratic right of negotia-
tion taken away from them.

S. Leeden
West Vancouver

Dear Editor

I was pleased to sce your
article on the issue of Hillside
school being torn down to fund
a new school in the west of the
West Vancouver school district.
However, two very important
points were not raised by your
writer and are worth noting.

The facility, once torn down,
will never be replaced in the
central West Vancouver area.
We raust think beyond school
use but also community use.
When will we ever be able to
find the land again to have
such a fine gym that exists on
that property?

We have children in need of
activities. Is this school not
useful for after school activities
for the whole community?

From my experience, if you
are interested in the community

N. Shore News

LETTERS TO the editor must in-
clude your name, written legibly,
your full address and telephone
number,

Due to space constraints the

plan and development it is very
difficult to get information
from the school board office. {
can assure that the process to
become involved and informed
is very long and tedious. Tack
that on to the other jobs we all
do. and eventually vigilant
parents fade away and the
board does what it pleases.

Proper committees and real
communication could alleviate °
any future problems and con-
flicts between them and us.

We must let the officials
know that it is our money and
Jand that they ure dealing with
and therefore it is our right to
speak out and be heard and
not shut down on the basis that
one man’s idea is the best.

Andree Vajda Jlanyk
West Vancouver

Mailbox policy

North Shore News cannot publish
all letters. Published letters may
be edited for brevity, clarity, ac-
curacy, legality and taste. Letters
can be faxed to 985-3227.