Racing the Bacon

I really don't know how, after four years of high-pressure days in the kitchen, I still plan a brunch menu that just kicks me back! I make whatever I want to make, all the time! Sunday though, dazzles somehow and I get starry-eyed as I run recipes and combinations of food through my head...and completely forget that I'm alone in the kitchen!

Yesterday was the worst Sunday of all. Every part of the plate was some fussy beautiful thing that came with some kind of sauce or had to be baked or fried, served hot or covered with plastic wrap between servings to prevent a surface film...sheeesh. The puffs with carmelized lavender pear sauce turned out to be the easiest preparation of the day. The rest...ratatouille, zucchini fritters with Greek yogurt, the homemade strawberry jam that I wanted to serve warm, the bacon leek risotto with poached egg...were pure kitchen gymnastics.

Bacon takes too long to crisp if you need it done. I know this from frantic past experience, so I chopped it and started it up on the stove. The leeks, wine, broth would all follow to make the risotto. As I chopped the leeks, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, pears, garlic, strawberries, dill, feta, parsley...for Pete's-sake...the bacon just stayed limp and pale. I kept chopping and watching, and getting more panic-stricken. With an hour to go, and the circus of four different recipes going at once...the bacon started to brown. And then as I was too deep into the other pots, it started to crisp like crazy! I couldn't stop what I was doing, and I had to get the leeks and wine in so that the risotto could start. I FLEW through the chopping and stirring; sweating, gritting my teeth, willing my heart to stop throbbing. So, FIVE recipes at once, and all selfishly demanding of my complete attention!

I've always been pretty good at keeping up. My kids still do keep me on my multi-tasking toes, and now Harrison and Carter are doing the same. Carter calls me "an athletic old person," and I dropped Harrison at school last week with his Medieval castle model that took us two weeks of intense labor...when I picked him up that afternoon, he told me that he needed a monk costume and rabbit stew for 40...in the morning! Eeek. I've still got it, though! I got it done!

But, yesterday morning, racing that bacon...sure made me think of hanging it up and retiring to a rocking chair! Till next Sunday...