Eating Then and Now

This is one of my favorite recipes. Look here:

Mediterranean Potato Pitas

A good bunch of cut up potatoes
Olive or Canola Oil in a large pan
Onion and garlic to fry 'em up
Some fresh ground pepper, some salt

Give it all a good and tender cooking, stirring to keep the potatoes even and fine, but before they're too soft, toss in sliced black olives and button mushrooms. Let it simmer for a minute or two, then add a lot of fresh spinach. Fill the pan with fresh spinach and let it cook down. Covering the pan helps steam it a bit. Sir it up and add more spinach until you run out. Give it another good stir and drop in two eggs if you made a lot. If you were feeling nervous, only add one. Check your taste buds and toss in some basil and oregano to boot.

When the eggs are blended and cooked, and the potatoes are nice and tender, take the pan off the heat and throw in gobs of crumbled feta cheese.  Stir it up. Stir it up.

Now you need pita pocket bread, cooking spray, shredded Parmesan cheese and a baking sheet. Stuff the pita pockets with the potato filling and let them make merry, laying each out on the baking sheet with a fine dusting of cooking spray and Parmesan cheese. Place them under the broiler just long enough to turn the pitas a warm, golden brown.

Serve with a generous helping of tzatziki sauce.

~*~

This was my first recipe, seventeen years gone and I still cook it up to warm my husband's belly. The first time I made it for him was at two-thirty, early, on a Sunday morning, after dancing and drinking at our best goth-industrial club on the far east side of Madison. We smelled of clove cigarettes and the cool, unnamed scent that radiates from fog machines. I was tired, keyed up and hungry. So early in the morning, I cooked as if on a dare.

The last time I went to that club I felt my age surrounding me like a helpless aura I couldn't shake. I was married with two kids and years past thirty. I could still dance the hours through, but the morning comes faster now with eager faces pulling at the sheets. Meals like this are done with more respect to time and energy. They're planned ahead, thought out, and served with a cold glass of 1% milk.