Valley girls in the kitchen - essay

I absolutely cannot write another word about the absoluely dismal state of the world or the imminent fascist takeover of America. After all, it is Christmas Eve. Or should I saw Holiday Eve? So here is another essay.


Have you had the opportunity to observe "Valley Girls" in the kitchen? No? Too bad. Depending upon how you look at it, it is either a comedy or a tragedy. Perhaps both. Take a simple task, for example, like preparing an ordinary carrot. The Valley Girl selects a dull knife from a large and expensive matched collection of such implements. She cuts off the top third of the carrot, throws it away, and then cuts off the bottom third which she throws away. She then selects an expensive but basically useless peeling instrument and proceeds to peel the remaining third. Mind you, this is only in an emergency, when she has no canned or frozen carrots on hand. She does the same thing with potatoes and all other vegetables. Never mind the starving Chinese or Armenians or whomever.
Valley Girls know food is cooked when it sticks to the bottom of the pan. It doesn't matter what they cook, rice, potatoes, noodles, chili, whatever, if it doesn't stick firmly to the bottom it just isn't done. Most Valley Girls own somewhere in the vicinity of 200 cookbooks. They also subscribe to Gourmet or Bon Apetite or both. They do not use these books and magazines, preferring instead to use recipes from canned goods or the Sunday supplement that call for mixing two or more cans of something-or-other together. They do this mostly to avoid ruining their manicures but also because other forms of cooking take too much of their shopping time. In any case, Valley Girls only prepare five different dinners per week (they insist on eating out two nights a week, on the day they have their nails done and also the day they have their hair done). Typically they do pizza (ordered), spaghetti (canned), macaroni and cheese (packaged), chicken (only the expensive skinned breasts, barbecued by their husbands), and when in a real hurry, tuna wiggle (prepared by mixing two or more cans of stuff). They specialize in desserts which are either purchased frozen (as pies) or in mixes (cakes). They do, however, add little touches of their own such as breaking a candy bar on top of the frosting or inserting marshmallows between the layers or by the elaborate use of sprinkles. They claim they cannot eat these concoctions because they are dieting. They are always dieting no matter how thin or fat they may be. Indeed, there seems to be no connection whatever between their appearance and their dieting. They prepare their "gourmet" delights only for their families and become terribly hurt if their husbands and children fail to rave about what wonderful cooks they are.
For breakfast Valley Girls eat only grapefruit. For lunch they eat out, usually hot fudge sundaes or some other form of ice cream (giggling all the while, of course, that they shouldn't). This spares them the necessity of having to clean up after themselves (the dinner dishes are always done by their husbands). Valley Girls are constitutionally unable to rinse anything or put anything away. They cannot smash an empty container, open a bottle of wine, or remember to bring their coffee cup back from the bathroom to the kitchen. Recycling is far too confusing for them.
Valley Girls do like to eat dinner out - as often as possible. But they will only go to expensive restaurants. And they only order the most expensive items. Indeed, in collaboration with husbands the really savvy restaurants in the valley have separate menus for men and women. Hers does not include prices. While this slows down the ordering process it sometimes saves hubby a little money. Desserts, the richer the better, are not considered dietary items on these occasions.
In order to establish herself as a true gourmand the Valley Girl is apt to pronounce in a loud voice, usually in the presence of the waiter, something like, "This is not Chicken Cordon Bleu like my mother used to make. Or Blankette du Veau, or Truite en Bleu, or whatever (of course she learned to cook from her mother; she learns these terms from her unlimited supply of cookbooks).
Valley Girls do have their good points. Their kitchens, for example, are usually spotless (a combination of lack of use and husband's efforts). And they always contain the best of every available kitchen gadget. Not really designed for cooking, they are usually huge so the photographers from House and Gardens or Good Housekeeping or Architectual Digest can take better photographs. Of course Valley Girls must have several sets of dishes. It just would not do to eat tuna wiggle twice in a row off the same pattern. And they must have crystal and silver and lace tablecloths and, in short, the works.
Valley girls are the only human beings on earth who do not know how to use a broom. Nor do they know the location of the garbage unless by chance it is on the way to the swimming pool. They are, as I think Zorba put it, poor helpless creatures. How can we not love them?