Cauliflower Power

We occasionally use this service called Imperfect Produce. It’s a business designed to lower food waste by taking produce that doesn’t meet grocery store beauty standards and selling them at lower prices along with home delivery. It’s seasonal and local. Usually a pretty good deal, too. You go in each week and choose what you want from the weekly offerings and it comes to your house in a couple days.

As always, things are pretty snug financially, so I’ve been cancelling our delivery every week to avoid the cost. In the craziness of last week and the hospital, I forgot to cancel or choose anything, so last night I got a big ole box of fruits and veggies on the doorstep. Fruit is easy enough, but getting the kids to eat eggplant or cauliflower seems about as likely as sleeping in on the weekend. That is to say, it’s possible but not very likely.

I went to Pinterest to look for cauliflower recipes that could tempt a seven year old. Holy cow, has cauliflower had an extreme makeover. Remember when cauliflower was just the last thing left on the veggie tray with the dregs of the ranch cup? Cauliflower was just stinky ghost broccoli. Now these fools on Pinterest are trying to convince me that you can make it taste like General Tso’s Chicken or buffalo wings or pizza. General Tso is rolling over in his deep fried grave, y’all. By the authority vested in me by $40k in culinary school loans, I now pronounce that cauliflower is just a vegetable and that vegetables don’t have wings. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably selling a Keto diet plan. I mean, I know this is Oregon, the ultimate hippie state where we pave our freeways with crushed Birkenstocks and recycled kitty litter, but damn, cauliflower. Have some self-respect.

Maybe we all need a bit of that confidence, though. It takes some serious stones to pass your white, boring veggie self off as pizza. And clearly it’s working because I saw cauliflower crusted frozen pizza in the Walmart last week. I guess, sometimes, you just gotta fake it til people believe you can make it. And once the people believe, maybe it starts being real for you, too. You suddenly believe you can be anything, even cilantro rice or Mac and cheese.

I’m working on my Cauliflower Power this week. I’m anxious about a whole litany of situations – my mom’s in the hospital, Pook still has mono, Melissa’s heart is all whacked out and Roo is still pooping himself on the daily. I have a prep call today with the attorney handling the lawsuit for my accident two and a half years ago and today is one year from the last conversation I had with my Aunt Margie. My brain and my heart are so full. I feel like the remnants of a veggie tray left out overnight in the breakroom, but what I need is some pizzability. I need to fake it til the people believe I can make it, so maybe I can believe it too.

The last thing my aunt said to me has been ringing through my head all day. We knew it was our last conversation and there wasn’t anything between us but love. She was at peace with her decision to stop care and was ready to be with Jesus and her parents. She was dry-eyed and tranquil. I was far less calm. I took her hand and told her thank you for believing in me and how much I loved her. She smiled at me and said, “You’re my girl. You’ve always been my girl.” And she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Aunt Margie, who we called Ooma, had some serious Cauliflower Power – she was a single mom who worked until the week she died. She was tough and she was brash and she did nothing small. I’m sure she had lots of moments where she felt less than confident in herself, but she was never sacrificed her authenticity in the face of that fear. She was most definitely a General Tso’s kind of girl. She’d be proud of me even if I fell on my face today, but I won’t. And I know that I won’t because I’m too much like my auntie. I will be buffalo wings, dangit.

Power to the cauliflower people. May we find true confidence to be whoever the heck we want without fear of public opinion. May we live like my Ooma. May we connive seven year olds into eating their veggies. Let it be so.