Chicken pot lie

It is a longstanding tradition here at Suburban Kamikaze to begin every Thursday with a confession.

Ok, so that's not true. 

But now that we have, it could be a thing. And we are desperately in need of "a thing" here at Suburban Kamikaze, where the stuff of big-time blogging - cats, recipes, readers - is in very short supply.

We tried to establish a more disciplined theme and publication schedule once, but it was anarchy trying to corral all of the other themes and it also turned out that there was not as much interest in the stuff under my couch as I had anticipated.

But whatever, Internet. Now that I've got you hooked with a confession, you will be putty under my couch.

What is it that we love about a confession? I suppose it has something to do with the feeling of superiority it provides, the feeling that no matter how we have wasted our lives trying to reproduce stuff off the recipe cards inside the Martha Stewart magazine at the hair salon, somewhere out there, someone else has done something even worse.

This week it was me.

And I'm not just talking about pretending that Confession Thursday was a real thing. Because at this point, the gap between that being a complete fabrication and mostly fabrication is starting to close a little bit. Truth has a funny way of coming true like that. 

But I didn't come here on Confession Thursday to write about truth. That would make no sense.

I came to write about a teeny, tiny not-truth:

I didn't make the chicken pot pie.

The chicken pot pie came to us almost exactly as it was when Mr. Kamikaze first cast his eyes upon it - only a lot colder, from a box inside a freezer in the aisle at Costco.

I didn't plan to lie about it. It's just that he looked so happy when he saw it. And he made a point of complimenting me on it. Asking me whether it was corn starch that made the sauce so thick? What was I supposed to say? I have no idea? What kind of an answer is that?

I know how discouraging it is to come home from work day after day to find that the girl and I have visited  grocery and specialty stores across the Midwest, hand selecting entree after entree, filling every cabinet in the house with boxes and bags and unrecognizable, but expensive-looking containers of the kind of food he doesn't like.

Does an olive grow anywhere on the planet that has not been in our refrigerator? How many different kinds of bread can a counter hold before something that looks like bread to him will appear?  

I know how hard it is for him, with his crazy, olives-don't-count-as-dinner dietary requirements.  So I let him believe we had made him a chicken pot pie, out of, you know, caring and stuff, and whatever else goes into a chicken pot pie. Carrots, I think.

Once the misunderstanding was out there, there was no way to roll it back up. Not even with the rolling pin I might have dusted lightly with flour and left out on the counter. 

Photo: The author often once never prepares homemade chicken pot pies at home for the members of her family, so the fact that anyone would believe she had is really beyond the point at which she could be criticized for not correcting the record. Which, for the record, she just did. So.

Comments

[Suburban Sheepdog]

Struthious. This is a recent favorite addition to my vocabulary. It means "of or relating to ostriches" and is an actual word that I did not make up.

It can be used in a sentence like this:

"Knowing her as he did, married to her for as long as he had been, it was only through the rigorous exercise of a struthious suspension of disbelief that Mr. Kamikaze could have believed for even one single second that Suburban Kamikaze had hand-crafted a chicken pot pie."

Struthious. Handy word.

As for confessions, and speaking for most men and all husbands -- as I am clearly well-qualified to do -- you should realize that confessions are not a bad thing for a marriage. Indeed, they may be highly beneficial, when made directly to the offended Mr., while attired only in that little thing you bought at that place but never thought you'd really get up the nerve to wear. (I cannot speak to their effect when made on the internet while -- I'd guess -- wearing sweat pants.)

[Suburban Kamikaze]

I plan to begin using it immediately. The word, not the little thing, which requires a little more, what is the word? Oh god, I am so tired. I am trying to remember when I washed my hair last. Do we have any olives? Oh yes, Effort.

SK

[Mr. Kamikaze]

For the record, Mr Kamaikaze has lived many years and therefore has collected enough wisdom to immediately recognize the retail significance of aluminum foil containers serving in support of chicken pot pies. The corn starch question was a trap.

[Suburban Kamikaze]

Let's not lose sight of the fact that by modern culinary standards, not counting the kind of people who make chicken pot pies from scratch, I really did make that chicken pot pie. I think that is the takeout takeaway here.

SK

[Sarah B.]

I had to read this to my husband, along with the comments, because he, also, is occasionally subject to confessions of this kind… wherein I type the truth rather than saying it and discoveries are made at his leisure. It works for us. I'm glad it also works for others.

[Audubon Ron]

WHY!? WHY!? Oh WHY!? am I crying? I love confessions.

[L. E. Bruce]

You are back! I have been checking every Sunday to see an update OMG how many years has it been, and apparently I missed a few, and there you are! I have always enjoyed your posts as a fellow Chicago area person, Mother, married to a man, drinker, (switched to vodka or gin because wine has too many carbs). I am happy to see you again.

[Suburban Kamikaze]

Thank you! I hope to be back on the beat on a more regular basis soon.

SK