MAKE IT FUN!
Gazette Contributor
(For more than 35 years, New York Times best-selling author Pam Young has been the “get organized guru” thru thousands of newspaper articles, magazine feature stories and radio and TV interviews. A frequent guest on Oprah, Regis, Today Show,700 Club, CBS Morning News and many more, Pam has guided and helped women turn their chaotic homes into havens of peace and order.To listen to this essay while you do something productive with your hands go to www.makeitfunanditwillgetdone.com)
(For more than 35 years, New York Times best-selling author Pam Young has been the “get organized guru” thru thousands of newspaper articles, magazine feature stories and radio and TV interviews. A frequent guest on Oprah, Regis, Today Show,700 Club, CBS Morning News and many more, Pam has guided and helped women turn their chaotic homes into havens of peace and order.To listen to this essay while you do something productive with your hands go to www.makeitfunanditwillgetdone.com)
Men
are weird when they’re hungry. I learned this early in my marriage to Terry.
When it was dinner time he used to always be ravenous and, quite frankly, I
didn’t like him when he was that way. He didn’t act mean or cranky like some
men do; he just acted like he’d skipped his meds. He’s sort of a combination of
Cramer (in the sitcom Seinfeld) and Barney Fife (in The Andy Griffith Show).
But when he’d get hungry he’d be like those two characters on speed.
Famished men definitely act differently than famished women. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Swanson didn’t think to name their large portioned TV dinner, Hungry Woman Dinner, even though an average lady can put one away with no problem. No one addresses the idea of a hungry woman because, quite frankly, we never are. That’s because we snack. From the time we are youngsters; we spend more time in the kitchen and therefore have more access to food than men do. If we work outside of our homes we carry with us a snacking pattern gleaned from generations of female snackers. I would bet that more business women have snacks in their drawers at work than men do. And men don’t have purses (a natural snack sack) in which to tuck treats.
Men love hors d’oeuvres because they send a chemical message to the male brain that tells the animal there is food ready to eat, NOW. The hors d’oeuvres go straight into the blood stream, assuring the organism that all is well. I think men like hors d’oeuvres more than women do, because women don’t need them like men do. When I fix dinner, frequently I hors d’oeuvre myself into a bloated stupor before I’ve sat down to the dinner table.
Hors d’oeuvres don’t have to take much time to prepare. They can be food from the main meal held out and put on a special plate. Say you’re having roast chicken; just throw the cooked gizzard, heart and liver in the Cuisnart with a little onion, celery, garlic and mayo, smear it on a couple of crackers and put it on a fancy plate that doesn’t match anything else in your china cupboard. (You can find such plates and bowls at any reputable garage sale.)
Hors d’oeuvres can come from a refrigerator clean out. It doesn’t really matter as long as it is served IMMEDIATELY!
In French, hors d’oeuvres means outside of work. The French were very clever to name this part of a meal hors d’oeuvres because a hungry husband just outside of work needs something in his stomach.
The French are also known for being romantic. They probably thought up the saying, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” I think that is true. If you want to stop fighting over stupid things like who used the last square of toilet paper and didn’t replace the roll, serve hors d’oeuvres.
If your marriage is threatened by quibbling over who uses all the gas in the car and coasts it into the driveway, serve hors d’oeuvres right there in the garage.
If your husband expects you to be a natural navigator and you can’t read a map unless the map and the car are going in the same direction, have hors’ d’oeuvres in the front seat and you’ll be home free.
Hors d’oeuvres could save your marriage. Wouldn’t it be a shame if the only thing standing in the way of happier marriages was a glob of tuna salad on a couple of nice crisp romaine lettuce leaves?
For more from Pam Young go to www.makeitfunanditwillgetdone.com. You’ll find many musings, videos of Pam in the kitchen preparing delicious meals, videos on how to get organized, ways to lose weight and get your finances in order, all from a reformed SLOB’s point of view.
Famished men definitely act differently than famished women. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Swanson didn’t think to name their large portioned TV dinner, Hungry Woman Dinner, even though an average lady can put one away with no problem. No one addresses the idea of a hungry woman because, quite frankly, we never are. That’s because we snack. From the time we are youngsters; we spend more time in the kitchen and therefore have more access to food than men do. If we work outside of our homes we carry with us a snacking pattern gleaned from generations of female snackers. I would bet that more business women have snacks in their drawers at work than men do. And men don’t have purses (a natural snack sack) in which to tuck treats.
Men love hors d’oeuvres because they send a chemical message to the male brain that tells the animal there is food ready to eat, NOW. The hors d’oeuvres go straight into the blood stream, assuring the organism that all is well. I think men like hors d’oeuvres more than women do, because women don’t need them like men do. When I fix dinner, frequently I hors d’oeuvre myself into a bloated stupor before I’ve sat down to the dinner table.
Hors d’oeuvres don’t have to take much time to prepare. They can be food from the main meal held out and put on a special plate. Say you’re having roast chicken; just throw the cooked gizzard, heart and liver in the Cuisnart with a little onion, celery, garlic and mayo, smear it on a couple of crackers and put it on a fancy plate that doesn’t match anything else in your china cupboard. (You can find such plates and bowls at any reputable garage sale.)
Hors d’oeuvres can come from a refrigerator clean out. It doesn’t really matter as long as it is served IMMEDIATELY!
In French, hors d’oeuvres means outside of work. The French were very clever to name this part of a meal hors d’oeuvres because a hungry husband just outside of work needs something in his stomach.
The French are also known for being romantic. They probably thought up the saying, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” I think that is true. If you want to stop fighting over stupid things like who used the last square of toilet paper and didn’t replace the roll, serve hors d’oeuvres.
If your marriage is threatened by quibbling over who uses all the gas in the car and coasts it into the driveway, serve hors d’oeuvres right there in the garage.
If your husband expects you to be a natural navigator and you can’t read a map unless the map and the car are going in the same direction, have hors’ d’oeuvres in the front seat and you’ll be home free.
Hors d’oeuvres could save your marriage. Wouldn’t it be a shame if the only thing standing in the way of happier marriages was a glob of tuna salad on a couple of nice crisp romaine lettuce leaves?
For more from Pam Young go to www.makeitfunanditwillgetdone.com. You’ll find many musings, videos of Pam in the kitchen preparing delicious meals, videos on how to get organized, ways to lose weight and get your finances in order, all from a reformed SLOB’s point of view.
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