I know I promised a fancy-sounding Santorini salad for my next post. But it turns out I have barely had the strenghth to fry an egg this past week. This often happens when my husband is traveling for work. It is embarrassing to acknowledge, but I am less inclined to make an effort in the kitchen when daddy is out of town. As if the man of the house deserved more somehow, and couldn't be expected to be content with canned beans or frozen chicken nuggets for a night or two. Whereas I have no qualms serving this to my children - although I have to say, as my oldest son is now fifteen, I find myself feeling a little embarrassed not doing more for him, at times. Would it be different if he were a girl? I don't know, but I do notice a slight patriarchy pattern going on when dinner is involved, and this is something that is worth exploring. Anyway. Suffice it to say that the Santorini salad didn't happen, no matter how little work I'm sure it actually involves. Hell, I didn't even have the energy to upload the pictures that were supposed to go with that post. I have been a wreck all week over a big decision we recently had to make, and putting dinner on the table for the kids has seemed like an impossible task. There were only three children at home, my 8-year-old son being on a class trip. So the house felt eerily quiet, and I should I have had more time and energy to feed those of us who were here. But it just didn't happen and the best I could do was serve frozen fish, sausage, leftovers from those meals that were barely a meal, and one night, a pasta recipe that was barely a recipe.
It was inspired by an Instagram account for cooking when you have"la flemme" - a wonderful French word for which I cannot think of an English equivalent, maybe because Anglo-Saxons are less prone to it than we are over here. As far as I remember, New Yorkers rarely, if ever, expressed such a sentiment. While I hear about this all the time in Paris, and am one of the most active "flemme" proponents I know, sometimes to a fault, it has to be said. "Avoir la flemme" means to feel lazy, not have the energy to do anything. Like "Let's go see a movie" - "Non j'ai la flemme", I'm too tired to even contemplate it and I just want to hide under a blanket and binge on Netflix instead. I wasn't able to relocate that account after I came across it randomly, but I will definitely share it if I do. This week was a major flemme week for me, and that recipe ended up being a life-saver on Wednesday. It just involves pasta, cream cheese, and smoked salmon. A sprinkle of chives or dill if you happen to have some lying around. That's it. Like a pasta version of a brunch scrambled eggs type of thing, if you wish. There is literally nothing to do here. You boil the pasta, and then mix in some cream cheese - I don't even know how much the Instagram person recommended. I ended up using three packs of "St Moret" with a little heavy cream. And two packs of smoked salmon. All from the grocery store downstairs. I didn't even have chives, or dill. But my kids devoured the whole thing and declared that they wanted me to make this more often. Even better, they were full after only one plate (they always request a second serving of pasta), which means I had plenty of leftovers for the next day. So, no one except myself felt bad about my "flemme", and my children survived their week, so far at least. All of this to tell you that no matter how shitty you feel at any given time, and even when your world seems to be about to fall apart or be transformed from the inside out, even when it seems like you are just sleepwalking through your days and barely have the strength to take your kids to school in the morning - even on those days, or weeks, you are still being the best mom you can be, and your children will meet you where you are, "flemme" and all. And they will be OK. On this note, have a wonderful weekend, and please, indulge in your flemme if you need it, or just feel like it.
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