Ode to Spinach

Grey and slimy

Or green and shiny

Ah…spinach

We didn’t eat spinach in my house growing up. I don’t really know why but I suspect that it was something my father wouldn’t eat. I suspect that was probably because the spinach he might have known was that grey, slimy stuff that comes in a can. We ate mostly canned vegetables in my childhood. Then mom would cook them until there was no roughage left. That’s why I always thought that line in that Paul Simon song was “I was a constipated boy”. I understood that more than “consecrated.”

I don’t remember when I first had decent spinach but I think my ex-husband introduced me to it. I think I had it cooked like hell with lots of oil and lemon and cheese. I had it cooked like hell with garlic and cheese and lemon. I had it with lots and lots of garlic and oil and it was all good. Of course, it was fresh, not from a can. But I loved it.

Now I believe that I am obsessed with spinach. I cannot go to the supermarket without looking at, and usually buying, the spinach. I feel better when it is in the house, just knowing it is there. I keep it in water in the back refrigerator. I usually have at least two back there of varying ages so that if the older one has become grey and slimy, I will always have the newer one. They do last quite a while in water, I don’t have to waste a whole lot of it.

To a lesser extent I feel the same about two other vegetables that I never had growing up: eggplant and avocado. See, right now, I just realized that I don’t have any avocados in the house and now I am upset. I must go to the store.