Clam chowder

On Saturday morning, I woke up with a steel rod jammed into my spine. Now before you hand me a supersize bottle of Advil and inundate me with sympathy, this steel rod is exactly what I've been needing for a long time. It is a metaphor for my new attitude - toward motherhood, wifehood and general life here in the 'hood. I've long thought that molding myself to the wishes of my 6 children and busy husband would, in the long run, would net me a peaceful home and swimming pool full of warm fuzzies. However, aside from the bucketfuls of lint I scoop out of my dryer, the warm fuzzies have been in short supply lately. With two of my daughters now in their teens, one in her preteens and the rest of my children madly scrambling for their share of attention, things have been rather chaotic around here. It is not unusual for my hubby to be out working many evenings as well as weekends (although never Sunday, thankfully) so to be honest, the raising of the children generally falls into my lap. And don't get me wrong, I LIKE my job. I love my kids and generally adore them. But one area of their raising has continually confounded me. I have always found it incredibly hard to get them to eat (let along appreciate) the food I cook for them. Four out of five new recipes will generally get an almost unanimous thumbs down from my whole family. And to add insult to injury, the snide comments will begin before I've even thumped dinner onto the table. While I'm cooking, the kids will file in varying order into the kitchen in inquire what I'm cooking. Generally, my response will be met with an upturned nose (if they're feeling sensitive to my feelings) or a full-out deflating comment about how gross they find that particular meal. And let me hasten to add, I'm not that bad of a cook! I have my standards and I like good chow as much as the next chick. I've eaten in enough restaurants to know what other folks are willing to eat and I'm convinced that what I cook is NOT pig-slop in comparison. Sure, what I prepare is not restaurant fare. I don't plate the kids' food, nor am I willing to stick a sprig of rosemary in their mashed potatoes for a haute-cuisine effect. I'm sensible enough to know that those efforts would be wholly unappreciated. The rosemary springs would only end up dangling from their lips as mock cigarettes or be flicked back and forth across the table between dueling siblings. But my food is decent and my purpose has been pure - to feed my family with good food that balances flavour and nutrition.

However, the upshot of all this mealtime melodrama has been that I've been taking, more and more, the easy route. You want potato skins? No problem darlings. Let's throw some extra salt on them and really make your kidneys writhe. You like your boerenkool with more sausage this time? Good idea - the grease oozing out of them DOES make such pretty swirls on your plate. And so on - my own sarcastic comments an unhealthy sidekick to the boring and uninspiring fare hitting their plates at mealtime.

Which brings me to my steel rod. I woke up Saturday morning with a plan to do better. No more side-stepping the disparaging mealtime comments. No more ducking when the kids sling their verbal mud at me. I would fix 'em good - I was gonna make clam chowder. And make it I did. I started off with crisped diced bacon (a nod to their baser instincts for artery-clogging fat) and then brought out the big guns. Carrot, celery, onion - they all went into the pot. A full 28 oz. can of plum tomatoes. Splat - there it went too! By now the soup (stew?) looked decidedly healthy and I knew the kids would squirm when they saw it. But it gets better. Next I added (are you ready for this?) clam nectar. It's basically a cloudy liquid heavy on the salt with a pinch of clam saliva added for authenticity. Not content with this insult to their tastebuds, I added the final affront. Clams. Yeah, minced clams. Not the whole, perfect little clams that were gently hoisted from their shells at the seafood-processing plant. Nope, these were the reject clams. The ones that were either clumsily pried out and inadvertently minced by novice clam-harvesters or else ones that spontaneously exploded while being processed. These are the clams favoured by mothers who are trying to hide seafood in the soup. They're ugly but serve a nefarious purpose. These clams are so nondescript that when your child (or better yet, all six) ask whether there are clams in the clam chowder, you can honestly say, "I don't think so". I mean, I really had my doubts that I was dealing with real shellfish at this point.

The whole nondescript concoction bubbled in the slow-cooker for about six hours. Then I transferred it to my big soup pan to cool. This process took a further 3 hours and then I transferred it to the fridge for the night.

Sunday evening was the big reveal. To sweeten the deal, I had bought a nice crusty loaf of French bread and some fresh sliced deli ham and cervelat salami. All I would require of my children was that they eat of small ladle-full of soup.

Things were off to a rocky start when Bryan, fresh out of bed after a sweet 2 hour hap, saw the soup reheating the stove and asked, "What IS that stuff?". His question was innocent enough but the fact that he promptly made himself a plate of cheesy nachos 15 minutes before dinner did not bode well. The kids, of course, had to have nachos too.

When the family was finally sitting down for dinner, I gamely spooned up a small ladle-full for each of them. Their collective expression was one of, "Aw, gross!" The meal wound down to it's inevitable conclusion. The kids gorged themselves on French bread, each at a bare spoonful of chowder and I was left with a heavy soup-pan full of unwanted soup.

When we were cleaning up Bryan, in a typical show of spousal support, held up the soup pan and asked, "Can I chuck this stuff out?"

I resignedly told him, "No, I'm having that for lunch this week". And have it I will. I should last me *sigh* until Friday.