As far as I know, the only evidence supporting the theory that Julia Child
first made Potage Parmentier during a bad bout of ennui is her own recipe for
it. She writes that Potage Parmentier- which is just a Frenchie way of saying
potato soup - "smells good, tastes good, and is simplicity itself to
make." It is the first recipe in the first book she ever wrote. She
concedes that you can add carrots or broccoli or green beans if you want, but
that seems beside the point, if what you're looking for is simplicity itself.
Simplicity itself. It sounds like poetry, doesn't it? It sounds like just
what the doctor ordered.
It wasn't what my doctor ordered, though. My doctor - my gynecologist, to be
specific - ordered a baby.
"There are the hormonal issues in your case, with the PCOS, you know
about that already. And you are pushing thirty, after all. Look at it this way -
there will never be a better time." This was not the first time I'd heard
this. It had been happening for a couple of years now, ever since I'd sold some
of my eggs for $7,500 in order to pay off credit card debt. Actually, that was
the second time I'd "donated"- a funny way of putting it, since when
you wake up from the anesthesia less a few dozen ova and get dressed, there's a
check for thousands of dollars with your name on it waiting at the
receptionist's desk. The first time was five years ago, when I was twenty-four,
impecunious and fancyfree. I hadn't planned on doing it twice, but three years
later I got a call from a doctor with an unidentifiable European accent who
asked me if I'd be interested in flying down to Florida for a second go-round,
because "our clients were very satisfied with the results of your initial
donation." Egg donation is still a new enough technology that our slowly
evolving legal and etiquette systems have not yet quite caught up; nobody knows
if egg donators are going to be getting sued for child support ten years down
the line or what. So discussions on the subject tend to be knotted with
imprecise pronouns and euphemisms. The upshot of this phone call, though, was
that there was a little me running around Tampa or somewhere, and the little
me's parents were happy enough with him or her that they wanted a matched set.
The honest part of me wanted to shout, "Wait, no - when they start hitting
puberty you'll regret this!" But $7,500 is a lot of money.
Anyway, it was not until the second harvesting (they actually call it
"harvesting"; fertility clinics, it turns out, use a lot of vaguely
apocalyptic terms) that I found out I had polycystic ovarian syndrome, which
sounds absolutely terrifying, but apparently just meant that I was going to get
hairy and fat and I'd have to take all kinds of drugs to conceive. Which means,
I guess, that I haven't heard my last of crypto-religious obstetric jargon.
So. Ever since I was diagnosed with this PCOS, two years ago, doctors have
been obsessing over my childbearing prospects. I've even been given the Pushing
Thirty speech by my avuncular, white-haired orthopedist (what kind of
twenty-nine-year-old has a herniated disk, I ask you?).
At least my gynecologist had some kind of business in my private parts. Maybe
that's why I heroically did not start bawling immediately when he said this, as
he was wiping off his speculum. Once he left, however, I did fling one of my
navy faille pumps at the place where his head had been just a moment before. The
heel hit the door with a thud, leaving a black scuff mark, then dropped onto the
counter, where it knocked over a glass jar of cotton swabs. I scooped up all the
Q-tips from the counter and the floor and started to stuff them back into the
jar before realizing I'd probably gotten them all contaminated, so then I shoved
them into a pile next to an apothecary jar full of fresh needles and squeezed
myself back into the vintage forties suit I'd been so proud of that morning when
Nate from work told me it made my waist look small while subtly eyeing my
cleavage, but which on the ride from lower Manhattan to the Upper East Side on
an un-air-conditioned 6 train had gotten sweatstained and rumpled. Then I slunk
out of the room, fifteen-buck co-pay already in hand, the better to make my
escape before anyone discovered I'd trashed the place.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
First time novelist Vaddey Ratner captured my heart and senses in this novel based on her childhood in Cambodia. Her story transcends any news story...
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From the first page, I was drawn in by the lyrical writing of the author and mesmerized as the narrator, eight year old Raami, remembered the years...
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Trite but true, all good things must come to an end. I so wanted to keep reading the wonderful prose, the settings that let one think they are part...
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Kenn Nesbitt is new Children's Poet Laureate(Jun 12 2013) Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position...
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