Sarah Palin and the "Post-Palate Era"

With Ralph and the kids out canvassing for Obama, this past Saturday marked the first time since Sam was born in 2002 that I was in the house, alone, without a deadline looming. And since I married a man who not only loves to cook but is also a forceful presence in the kitchen (this is my diplomatic way of saying he's a kitchen fascist), it was one of the few times since Ralph and I met that I was in charge of cooking for a dinner party. 

Is food like music, I wonder. Do we go back to the recipes we relied on when we were starting out on our own in the same way that most of us never really progress past the music we liked in high school and college? My anthem: Earth Wind and Fire's "September." My dish: Chicken Marbella. 

For anyone who doesn't know, Chicken Marbella, distinguished by the colors and flavors of prunes, green olives, and capers, comes from The Silver Palate Cookbook. One of the people who didn't know about the book was our 20-something dinner guest, who was, after all, two or three when it came out in 1982. 

But when I was in my 20s, it was THE go-to cookbook--a bridge between the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook of my mother's heyday and epicurious.com and foodchannel.com now. And for me, it was also a highly personal book, because my first apartment in New York, a furnished one-bedroom on the top floor of a five-story-walkup on West 73rd Street, was kitty-corner across Columbus Ave. from the Silver Palate, a snail's shell-size storefront that sold the same gourmet food as the cookbook set forth. Although there was nothing especially revolutionary about either the store or the book, both were emblematic of America's burgeoning food culture

--and culture, in general--in the '80s. As the authors, Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso write in the intro: 

The Silver Palate was born of two women's personal desperation. Our lives had become increasingly active and it was getting more and more difficult to juggle it all. There were school schedules, business appointments, political activities, art projects, sculpting classes, movie going, exercising, theater, chamber music concerts, tennis, squash, weekends in the country or at the beach, friends, family, fund raisers, books to read, shopping that couldn't be avoided, and, last, but not least, trying to prepare creative, well-balanced meals daily and an occasional dinner party at home. It was much too much. The wonder women we thought and were being told we were, had to acknowledge we might not be.

It certainly sounds tough! I can't imagine trying to fit squash and a sculpting class into the same day, either. Or the same month, for that matter. What does resonate is the part about being "wonder women," because I remember so well thinking then, as most of my friends did, "I'm going to have it all." I even remember writing an essay about it to get into graduate school, and whether or not it was based on the weakness of my argument, I was turned down. As time passed, but still before I had children, the phrase shifted to being, "You can't have it all at once, but you can still have it," and I thought that made a lot more sense.

But life has proved both ideals wrong for me and everyone I know--I suspect even for Sarah Palin, who has revived, and become the poster mom for, the debate. In the first case, if you have a fulfilling career, a wonderful husband, well-adjusted, well-groomed children, and Chicken Marbella on the table when you come home at night, chances are great that you are weighed down by the guilt of feeling that you're not spending enough time with your kids, who, it turns out, grow up fast and do not become well-adjusted and well-groomed on their own. In the second case, if you step out of your career or slow it down to raise your children in a more hands-on fashion, you have the nagging dread that (a) you're missing out on important work and (b) you'll never get back on track. I'm not saying anything new here, I'm just saying the dilemma has never been satisfactorily resolved.

When I told my friend Sarah (the other Sarah, that is) on Sunday that our dinner guest had never heard of The Silver Palate, she joked, "I guess it's not the post-racial era we're living in, it's the post-Palate era." 

So here's my question for the women in what I'm calling the epicurious generation--women who haven't had to make decisions yet about balancing work and family. It doesn't matter if you've never heard of The Silver Palate, but does "having it all" mean anything to you? Is there another paradigm?