Sara’s Diary: Day 10 without baseball

When my brother and I were in elementary school my mom went back to school to get her nursing degree. It was one of the most tenacious and gritty things I ever witnessed. It also shifted a few things in our house in key ways, specifically who was in charge of making dinner.

Early on in this experiment my father would be “in charge” for a couple of nights and those nights were always frozen pizza nights. We were like nine and ten years old, so this seemed totally fine to us. But over time my dad got a lot better at this. Somewhere in that time my dad took over Sunday dinner duties completely and for the last two decades it seems like every Sunday at our house was a feast.

My dad is a wizard on the grill and my parents have had a garden full of squash, peppers, and tomatoes for as long as I can remember. Sunday became “dad’s night to cook” and that meant multiple grilled meats, veggies and baked potatoes in the oven. Sometimes, if my dad and I had taken a weekend fishing trip that dinner included grilling rainbow trout, fresh striped bass, or if we were really lucky, a walleye pike. Even as an adult it is one of my favorite things about visiting home. The only other meal that can hold a candle to it in terms of perfection is a hot dog and a beer in the bleachers at Wrigley Field.

That dinner has always been a source of comfort to me in uncertain times. When I lived in Utah if I’d had a rough week at college or work, I knew I could drive home for the weekend and that Sunday dinner would be waiting for me. When I moved across the country to Boston I knew every visit home would include at least one night where my dad would grill the best meal I’d had in months.

It’s going to be a while until I can head home to the comfort of my dad’s Sunday dinner, and I have no idea how long it will be before any of us can enjoy a hot dog and a beer in the bleachers. However, as I’m sitting on my couch planning my own Sunday dinner and wishing desperately that I was enjoying that meal with my parents in these crazy times, I wanted to know what’s cooking at your house these days. Maybe we can create some of that cozy sense of home together.

As for me, I’ve got a chicken breast marinating in some lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper. My little apartment doesn’t have a grill, but I’ll be searing that up while I steam some broccoli and rice for a simple Sunday dinner for one. It’s not quite an MN_Exile level feast, but it will provide a bit of comfort after 10 of the most most uncertain and ominous days of my lifetime.

This entry was inspired by longtime BCB member MN_Exile and their incredible cooking pics in previous entries. It may become a bit of a tradition in this crazy time, a sort of virtual potluck we can all look forward to.