The Cuisinart Effect

Warning: this post contains some registered trademark names. RantWoman may or may not dutifully get her little trademark symbols put in.

RantWoman has been:

1. Promising the world some meditations on hypothetical internet-capable refrigerators. Teaser alert: RantWoman is self-conscious about many things to do with refrigerators,kitchens, RantMom. RantWoman can scarcely imagine more than a tiny number of circumstances that would interest RantWoman in a refrigerator on the internet.

2. Promising the alumni-relations minded members of her former college co-op some graduation season reflections on life, the universe, and undergraduate dining cooperatives.

RantWoman is all set to ... two birds with one stone, as follows.

Once upon a time, RantMOM went off to college. RantMom was thrifty and motivated and a home economics major. For at least part of RantMom's college career, RantMom lived in a co-op house. This was before the days of rampant co-ed living. RantWoman has no idea how many coeds lived there. They cooked and shopped together. They all gathered in the house mother's room on Saturday nights to watch Lawrence Welk. This was fun for RantMom at the time.

Once upon a later time, RantWoman ran away from home on a scholarship to far-off university. RantWoman lived a couple years in dorms. Far-off university dining options for juniors and seniors included something called eating clubs, living in small group apartments, OR....The 2 Dickinson St Co-op. RantWoman dutifully poked her nose into eating clubs a few times just to see what there was to be seen. Mostly for various reasons, RantWoman decided that if a co-op had been good enough for RantMom in college, it sounded like just the perfect option for RantWoman.

Freshman year, the co-op was famous for ... contraband cats. Crusty alumni ranting in the alumni magazine about the world going to pot because of "coeds, cats, and commies" at the co-op did not hurt either. The co-op residents included people majoring in Dungeons and Dragons, people majoring in political activism, and a number of people with more conventional majors. Far-off university was a bit of a pressure cooker at times. One resident blew off stress by baking bread, sometimes several kinds of bread in close sequence. Another cultivated alfalfa sprouts for the household salads with a surgical precision. RantWoman...chopped vegetables.

RantWoman LIKED chopping vegetables. RantWoman was in the minority. One fine day one of the co-op members suggested getting a Cuisinart. RantWoman in her usual overflowing with tact style used the phrase "bourgeois extravagance." Silly RantWoman. The Cuisinart came to the co-op without RantWoman's assent. And..., and...shortly RantWoman became as exuberant a Cuisinart user as any of her housemates. RantWoman has been thinking of that story lately because RantWoman is poking gingerly at her horror, lingering from a couple years ago,  of the idea of an internet-capable refrigerator.

RantMom arrived for RantWoman's graduation. House practice was that all dirty dishes got cleaned up after supper. RantMom showed up after lunch. She did not even make i  to the refrigerator before the words "Honey, are there any good restaurants downtown?" Can anyone imagine why rantWoman migth be self-conscious about things to do with her kitchen on the internet?