Dinner Money
Summer months, redolant with humidity and mosquitoes, occasionally require a bit of indulgence. In my husband’s imagination, this indulgence expresses itself in the sleek lines of a grill. You’ve reached financial bliss when you have a grill, and our grill-less state indicates otherwise. Of course, the reality of a small NYC apartment dictates that we instead dubiously approach the public grills in local parks, light our briquets, and pray that any nastiness will burn away before we get around to cooking.
It seems to me that the American dream could be summed up in a grill. We don’t want to share, we want our own. And we want our own to be shiny, beautiful, and very, very powerful. Not the little 4 cylinder toys that get reasonable gas mileage, but an 8 cylinder monstrosity that requires a small herd of animals to die just so that it’s grill racks can be filled with an abundance that will strike envy and fear into the hearts of all our neighbors. (feeling a bit cynical tonight, are we?) It’s funny how we use money to make statements about ourselves, be it the Stuart Weitzman stiletto platforms I dream about (because they say I am confident, pampered, and don’t actually need to walk anywhere?), or the can of cavier that makes someone’s favorite foods list (which says, at least to me as onlooker, ”I know food, and have enough experience to distinguish exquisite cavier from boring roe”). Ah, we are shallow occasionally, all of us in our cravings.
To support that imaginary world, where grilled food flows freely, we spent $28 (credit card) to purchase italian sausage, rolls, bbq sauce and charcoal. All so we could enjoy a bit of time outside with a group of aquaintances/friends (which are we?)/ fellow interns, throw about a frisbee and football, and laugh about the horrible effects of excessive inulin intake on the human digestive track.