Life of Jane

Just Desserts

It takes one to know one

By Jane Borden

In my parents’ home, desserts are both rewards and consolations, applied as prescription and preventative medicine alike. As such, the procurement of them is as important as the distribution. My mother likes to be prepared.

Shortly after Nathan and I were married, we made an impromptu visit to Greensboro from Chapel Hill. Mom not only welcomed us generously but also threw together an elaborate dinner for four in the dining room. Afterward, she announced, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know you were coming, so we have nothing for dessert.” Naturally, we insisted: Dessert was unnecessary, and we were thankful for the delicious dinner, not to mention full. This was a response to the gesture behind the statement. And once it was made, I considered the statement itself. Suspiciously, I asked, “Wait, you have nothing for dessert?”

When my sisters and I were children, our kitchen pantry was legend. Across different grades and schools, word spread of the snack-food riches therein, making our house the first choice for any playdate location. I’m still not sure who were real friends, and who were mercenaries out for a payday in Little Debbie snack cakes.

They weren’t shy. They knew Mom’s organizational system and poked around freely. It was a bit like looking for coins in a video game. One employs a combination of tactics, returning to previously discovered gold mines while also seeking new sources. That was part of the fun. Our friends knew they could open the freezer door and score a few chocolate M&Ms, but also what’s behind that cereal box in the pantry? Is it one of a dozen cans of chicken consommé (a collection always stocked in case, I presume, the municipal water source became tainted and we had to drink it)? No. Is it a jar of relish that expired five years ago (that’s my dad’s organizational system)? No. Is it . . . yes, Girl Scout cookies! Wait, how old are they? Just kidding, I don’t care.

The shelves were deep. There was a lot to explore. And it required agility, considering the floor was littered with bottles of Diet Rite. I understand this culture of plenty. I inherited the trait. I go overboard, whether in my shopping cart or on my plate. “That looks good. Do I need it? Probably not. But you never know? Anyway, it might taste good. I like things that taste good. OK I’ll take it.”

For example, having a great plenty is what allows one to throw together a dinner for four in a formal dining room on short notice. Appreciation aside, however, I am biologically incapable of missing an opportunity to joke. That is how I came to do the unthinkable: endeavoring to entertain our group by making fun of Mom.

“You have nothing for dessert?” I asked, inviting her into the trap.

“Nothing!” Mom said innocently. “I feel terrible!”

“You’re sure there’s nothing?” I pressed.

“Yes!” she said.

“OK, I’ll just confirm,” I announced, rising from the table and heading first to the second refrigerator in the laundry room. “Bag of M&Ms in the drawer!” I shouted and, moving a bottle of chardonnay, added, “also a bag of jellybeans. And a box of Godivas.”

“Those don’t count,” Mom yelled back. “That’s candy!”

I next turned to the freezer: “Fudge popsicles!”

“They’re Weight Watchers,” she protested, “fake dessert.”

“And what about this homemade chocolate-covered toffee the Hassenfelts gave us for Christmas?”

“Jane,” she said, her voice now grave: “You better be careful.”

Making fun of mother is a risky venture. The situation must be perfect, or plans require, as revenge does, the digging of two graves. But any great endeavor is susceptible to circumstance, and if, when conditions do allow, our heroes fail to act, we’d never have harnessed electricity, or captured a giant squid on film. I realize I’ve just compared my mother to a giant squid, but the sound I sought — of her laughing at me laughing at her — is as rare.

I don’t mean to suggest her hard or stoic. Mom laughs constantly, and labors to elicit the same from others. She’s an entertainer. She says I get my sense of humor from my dad. Maybe. I hope so. He’s one of the funniest people I know. (Last year, when my parents visited Los Angeles, we took an Uber to Hollywood. After embarking, Dad had trouble with his seat belt, so the driver pulled over to wait. When the lock finally clicked, Dad leaned forward to the driver and cheerily announced, “OK, you can get in a wreck now!”) Regardless, I inherited my desire to entertain from her.

She’s a pro. Whether hosting a party in your honor or running into you at the Harris Teeter, Mom makes you feel special. And you can relax meanwhile, because she does all of the work, including the emotional labor. I’m not at her level. But I hope to be eventually. I’m still practicing. Anyway, it’s not my job to entertain when I’m with her. It’s hers. That duty is part of her general position as matriarch. Mom controls everything — including the comedy. If children are serfs, then my aim in mocking her was nothing short of an uprising.

But I had her cornered. I knew I was right and, more important, I knew this was funny. I pressed on to the kitchen pantry, where I found candied pecans, chocolate-covered almonds, gummy bears, and four kinds of Weight Watchers treats (caramels, minifudge bars, shortbread cookies, yogurt pretzels). I shouted out each as I found them.

“Jaaaane. . . .” she replied, threatening the outcome of my continued pursuit. This was getting worse before it got better. But if I stopped now, I’d have already lost. I had to double down.

“OK, I’m opening the kitchen freezer,” I yelled. And then she sighed loudly: resignation, a positive sign.

“Jackpot! Two kinds of ice cream, a frozen loaf of banana bread, a Skor bar, and more popsicles — not Weight Watchers.” I returned to the dining room: “17, Mom. That’s a total of 17 desserts in the house.”

She stared at me for two or three very long seconds, and then raised her eyebrows, shrugged and chuckled. It was a little thing, and also the best thing.

“OK,” she said, somewhat sarcastically. “Very funny.”  OH

Jane Borden grew up in Greensboro and now lives in Los Angeles, where she currently has nine desserts in the house and gets paid to be funny.

Life of Jane

Just Fine Dining

Does shopping at the grocery store count as a cooking skill?

By Jane Borden

The origin stories of celebrated chefs are often anecdotes about techniques passed through generations or revelatory meals experienced while traversing France. My culinary genesis tale: Nathan and I looked at our weekly schedules and realized that if we wanted family dinners with our daughter, who was now old enough to eat actual food, then the task of preparing said food would fall to me. I became a cook by default. Très inspirante.

We had a secondary goal to improve the caliber of dinner. Up to that point, our child ate purées from pouches, and Nathan and I grazed on hummus and carrots. No one ever ate well. Now we do eat together. But I still wouldn’t say we eat well.

I always assumed I‘d be a great cook. My mother is. She made delicious family dinners every night of my childhood in Greensboro. I’m making bland fuel that my husband chews and swallows anyway, because he is a good Midwesterner. Consistently, in response to my apologies or doubts, he says, “I think it’s just fine.“Just Fine: Wasn’t that the title of Bobby Flay’s biography?

Further, my mother made it appear effortless. Delicious meals simply appeared every night. Actually, I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen while she cooked, so I can’t say for sure, but she didn’t require three martinis to get through it, which is kind of where I am and, come to think of it, is maybe the problem.

All of my life, I figured I was a natural chef waiting in the wings and whenever I actually put spatula to pan, my innate talent would float to the top like a perfectly cooked shrimp. This is why people are reluctant to learn new skills. Inaction enables the harboring of delusion. Also, I cooked shrimp last week and overdid them. But Nathan said they were just fine.

If I actually were a “natural,” would I have waited until the age of 40 to pick up a pot? Then again, I had an excuse for that too. It had more or less been my sister Tucker’s path. No one expected Tucker to inherit Mom’s prowess because Tucker lived in New York and either ate out or ordered in every meal. But as soon as she moved to Raleigh, she turned into Ina Garten. In addition to parenting two children and working full time as an executive at a bank, she makes homemade stromboli. I can’t even pronounce stromboli and she can talk on the phone while she makes it. She’s in some kind of domestic honor guard. Meanwhile, when I heard feminists talk about having it all, I thought “it” meant a personal chef.

Maybe there is voodoo at play, and in order to become a cook like my mom, I too must move back to North Carolina. Except, if I’m being honest, my style of cooking was indeed inherited genetically — from my dad. His kitchen claims to fame include microwaved scrambled eggs and tapioca pudding from a box. In retrospect, I should’ve seen this coming, considering how many times I have defended him . . . or was it Julia Child who once said, “Of course microwaved eggs aren’t as delicious, but you only dirty one dish!”

To be fair, inheriting my dad’s sensibilities hasn’t left me bereft of culinary skills altogether. First, I have expert leftovers strategy. No food item goes to waste in my home, based on systematic rankings determined by frequent inventories of pantry and fridge, to assess what will rot first. This will serve me well in an apocalyptic future, or in the present whenever I want to feel environmentally smug. Second, I know how to handle (attack) a buffet. And third, I can locate and politely capitalize on every sample station in any fancy grocery store. Come to think of it, these are all strategies for eating. Basically, I’m saying that I’m really good at eating.

Feeding is harder. And yet I persist. Because dinner demands to be made and, according to our schedules, I’m the one to do it. So far I have three dishes in my arsenal:

• Instant Pot salsa chicken. Dump a jar of salsa on two chicken breasts in the instant pot and cook for 18 minutes. On the gas range, cook quinoa and chopped cauliflower in chicken broth. Shred chicken with a fork. Amazingly, it only took me a dozen times to perfect this.

• Turkey spaghetti. Sauté onion, add ground turkey until browned, dump in a jar of spaghetti sauce, add chopped mushrooms on top, and simmer for 12 minutes. On the range, cook whole wheat pasta. This one I should have mastered earlier, but I kept insisting on buying the cheapest tomato sauce.

• Stir fry. Sauté chopped tofu until brown, add vegetables, dump in a jar of teriyaki sauce, simmer.

Usually, my daughter says, “This is not my taste.” It is adorably polite and infuriatingly accurate. That’s when Nathan will say, “Honey, I think it’s just fine,” and his voice sounds like winds rushing over the Indiana plains. But hey, imagine how much my husband must love me when I’m definitely not reaching his heart through his stomach.

Although each rendition is not guaranteed to be better than the one before, like the arc of human history, things are bending in a positive direction. Sometimes, my daughter will say, “Mama, you made the best dinner ever,” and my heart swells. Then I remember that the key ingredients in each dish came in a premade sauce. Ah, the classic French technique of le dumpée du jar! C’est magnifique (ou du moins, facile). That’s right, I speak a little French. Maybe I should develop a recipe involving a bottle of French dressing.

Even if my daughter will never say, as I can, that her mother is a great cook, I am still able to create joy around food — not the preparing of it, which is a nightmare from which I won’t wake until she leaves for college —but rather when we shop for it. This I also inherited from my parents. I remember making fun of how excited they were for grocery runs on the weekend. It was like a date for them. I get it now. But for me, it’s a date with my daughter. We talk about it all weekend long until it happens. While we shop, she sits happily in the cart, munching on free samples — atta girl, way to be a Borden — and we take hug breaks on the freezer aisle when she gets a little cold. Sometimes, like a bad boyfriend suggesting scary movies, I make a second loop down the freezer aisle just to get another hug.

I am really good at grocery shopping. Why shouldn’t that be an innate cooking talent? It takes experience and insight to know which premade sauces complement which food items. My daughter sees a woman who is skilled at choosing and using jars. And if she inherits anything from her dad, she’ll think that’s just fine.  OH

Jane Borden makes the best Instant tapioca pudding in all of Los Angeles.

Life of Jane

Scarred for Life

The pros and cons of model behavior

By Jane Borden

My daughter fell on her face. By the time she lifted her head, she was screaming. I scooped her up and, with blood dripping onto her shirt, my dress and her lunch box, ran the block back to preschool. When we arrived, I was crying too.

“I think she needs stitches,” I said. They washed her a bit and agreed. Miss Claudia, her teacher, bandaged the gash above Louisa’s left eyebrow to keep her from fiddling with it and offered to chaperone us to urgent care. Yes, please. Someone needed to remain calm, and clearly it wouldn’t be me.

Louisa settled, once we were moving, mostly because Miss Claudia engaged her the whole way. I continued to panic. Driving to the emergency room, I was reminded of my own incident in second grade, when I smashed my finger in jazz-ballet. The class was at the Lewis Center in Greensboro, and one of the administrators drove me to the emergency room to meet my mother. At the time, I had a paranoid fantasy I was being kidnapped — this made sense because, if you’re going to steal a child, it’s especially convenient for her to have just sustained an injury requiring immediate medical attention.

This time around, while I was driving, I considered kidnapping Miss Claudia. Often, when Louisa disobeys at home, we ask, “Would Miss Claudia let you do that?” It’d be easier just to have her at home.

My childhood injury resulted not from my falling, but from something falling on me, namely a heavy steel bar. The jazz-ballet teacher was stern, therefore I thought she didn’t like me and so I endeavored to suck up. When she asked someone to pull the bars out onto the floor, I volunteered. There were two portable bars, small and large. Shaped like two-dimensional soccer goals, they stood upright by resting on feet made of shorter steel rods that attached at perpendicular angles. To pull a bar into the room, I tilted it forward and dragged it, bearing the weight of the uppermost rod.

I transported the smaller bar with ease. But the larger one overpowered me and I dropped it. Next, I remember seeing the tip of my right middle finger about an inch from the rest of the phalange but still connected by a strip of something corporeal, all against the white background of the Lewis Center floor as it began to stain red. Presumably the teacher had lifted the bar off my mangled digit. I doubt, in that moment, she’d liked me any more.

The staff wrapped my hand in an ice pack and washcloth. After I left, class resumed. My friend later relayed that some of our classmates had cried. I felt flattered at the time, but, in retrospect, realize their tears were probably from terror. Who wiped up the blood?

Louisa loves to tell the story of her scar. Someone will notice it and ask, with a wince or at least great concern, “What happened?” Then Louisa replies in excitement, sticking her little hand out to gesture, “Well, I was swinging on a chain and I fell face-forward onto the concrete.” She smiles as she recalls, enjoying the attention. She didn’t smile at the time. She gave the nurses hell.

A young woman, who was as kind as she could imagine necessary, announced that she’d clean Louisa’s wound with a spray bottle. My husband, Nathan, who by then had joined us, shared with me a skeptical look. The nurse asked that he and I hold Louisa still. Having been to doctors’ appointments with Louisa before, we knew that wasn’t possible. My child cannot be restrained.

Instruments have been flung across floors. Clothing has been torn. An octopus couldn’t hold her down with eight arms, and Nathan and I only had four. Even under normal circumstances, she can’t sit still — her definition of a hug is a one-second squeeze before she’s onto something else — and especially not when being forced to. Nathan and I did our best. The nurse squirted at the wound twice. Most of the fluid went into Louisa’s hair. The nurse had the idea to numb the wound with gel and then return to evacuate it later. A good portion of the gel also wound up in her hair.

Three hours after the fall, Louisa was finally ready for stitches. The team of nurses assisting the doctor decided to immobilize her with a series of sheets. They asked her if they could wrap her up “like a burrito,” which she found hilarious. Delighted, she laughed as they transformed her from a child into a potato with a head. But when they started touching said head, the fighter returned.

Nathan and I had been banished to the hallway because the doctor feared I would faint — if that gives you any indication of my mental state — and so, I listened to my child scream bloody murder, while a nurse shouted out to us, “We’re only cleaning the wound.”

“I thought you said she’d be numb?“ I asked.

“She is,” they responded, in unison. At one point, still during prep, a nurse exited the room to retrieve something. She passed us, sweating, and said to another nurse in the hall, “This kid is strong.” Then she literally wiped her brow. Atta girl, Louisa.

Moments later, the room grew completely silent. Were they delaying the procedure? Had they put her under anesthesia? Neither. The doctor said, “All done.” Turns out Louisa had exhausted herself resisting, and had fallen asleep just before the doctor began. Thank goodness, for if she hadn’t, the stitches would probably be crisscrossed all over her face.

All I got out of the stitches on my finger was a funny looking nail (it grows to the right like a curve in the road), a silly party trick (a bang of it sounds like a knock on the door), and a story. Sometimes a friend will suddenly notice the finger, years after knowing me, and say, “How could I never have noticed?”

It’s less fun when the disfigurement is on your face. Louisa’s scar currently includes not only the horizontal gash, but also the entry and exit points of all four stitches. We massage cocoa butter into it, a process she abhors. We say we’re saving her from a scar. But she doesn’t care about a scar. How can I explain that one day she’ll be vain, when I certainly don’t want her to be?

Occasionally, people tell her she’s beautiful. I don’t want her to be. Attractive, sure. But not beautiful. The world treats pretty girls differently, teaches them to value the wrong things in themselves and, sometimes, in others. Now, with this scar, I’m afraid I got what I wished for. In an effort at gallows humor, I occasionally joke, “At least she’ll never be a model.” Honestly, though, that couldn’t happen anyway. Models have to sit still.  OH

Jane Borden lives in Los Angeles, where reckless drivers occasionally have reason to see her disfigured middle finger.

Life of Jane

City Girl

A brief history of Borden and the ’boro

 

By Jane Borden

I believe identity is shaped by place, especially by the towns and cities of childhood. As a memoirist, I’ve made a (modest) career out of self-investigation. As a new parent, I’m more confused than ever. Therefore, to learn about myself, I turned to Greensboro’s past. Here’s a timeline of our shared histories.

circa 1750

• Before it was Greensboro, the area was known as Capefair, which was settled by Quaker migrants from Pennsylvania.

• Before I was Jane, I was going to be named Millie, after one of my father’s aunts. Actually, my mother’s doctor believed I would be a boy, so before Millie, I was probably Robert. Or Doug.

Late 18th century

• Greensboro becomes the third most populous city in North Carolina.

• I’ve been third place, generally speaking, most of my life. I always made the varsity teams in school, but I never started. I was good enough at improv to be placed on one of the theater’s house teams — but not on one that performed weekend nights. I published a book! It wasn’t a best-seller. You get the idea.

Late 18th century

• Sallie Stockard wrote in The History of Guilford County, North Carolina, that Greensboro was established on “an unbroken forest with thick undergrowth of huckleberry bushes, that bore a finely flavored fruit.”

• I almost always have fruit on me. Raisins, apple slices, a tangerine: You’ll find them in the side console of my car door, at the bottom of my purse, smushed into a pants pocket. I feel more in touch with Greensboro than ever.

1808

• The city’s name became Greensborough, after Nathanael Greene. Other places in America named after the same man include Greeneville, Tennessee, Greenville, South Carolina, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a 128-foot long Army tug boat and a nuclear submarine.

• I was named after Jane Pullen, who was named for Jane Armfield. Other women in America named for Jane Armfield include Jane Preyer, Janie Fountain, Ellie Jane Preyer and Janie Vaughan.

Early 1800s

• The county seat moved from Martinville to Greensborough, deemed the natural choice on account of being the geographic center of the county. Later, a courthouse was built to hear local disputes and cases.

• My parents’ house was also deemed a natural location for a courthouse, by me, who filed countless complaints, and made arguments for both the prosecution and defense, depending on what had been asked of me or what I had been caught doing. My parents are still surprised I’m not a lawyer. But I think I understood, even then, that an actual court of law would never accept my key tactic of “wearing down” the judge.

1865

• Greensboro did witness the demise of the Confederacy when Governor Vance surrendered to Union officials in the parlor of Blandwood Mansion.

• And I am still witnessing the demise of the Confederacy, because its prevailing ideologies are slow to disappear.

1869

• The Bank of Greensboro becomes the first bank chartered by the state of North Carolina.

• When I was a freshman at Page High School, I saved money all year to buy an  $85 ring at Glitters on Elm Street. It was a big green eyeball, encased in dragon claws. Needless to say, I was cool.

1890

• The Daily Record was first printed. A later iteration of it would eventually merge with another local paper, the Greensboro Daily News, and become the Greensboro News & Record.

• In 2005, I started writing about my life. But I have no employees. Still, like newspaper staffers everywhere, I wonder if I chose the wrong career.

1900

• Greensboro became known as a center of the Southern textile industry.

• One time I tie-dyed T-shirts in Girl Scouts. You better believe it was cutting-edge fashion. I also invented a few pairs of cut-off shorts in high school, but my factory foreman (mother) wasn’t pleased with the product.

1926

• WBIG begins broadcasting.

• In 1978, I started talking, and haven’t stopped. The only time I’m quiet is when I’m writing, and really that’s just talking onto paper.

1920s & 1930s

• During this time, Greensboro grew so rapidly that it experienced a housing shortage. Workers scrambled for one of the 80 to 100 affordable housing units built each year. Growth even continued during the Great Depression, when about 200 new families came each year.

• I put on 15 pounds in high school.

1957

• The Greensboro Science Center was first established, but under a different name, the Greensboro Junior Museum.

• In 1987, I asked my parents for a guinea pig. Instead, they gave me a book detailing how to care for a guinea pig. I read it and didn’t want one anymore.

1960

• The Greensboro Four sat at the segregated lunch counter at Woolworth’s on Elm Street, requesting service. The largest civil rights protests in N.C. history would take place in Greensboro over the next few years.

• The concurrence of having a child and living under our current president have simultaneously increased my capacity for empathy while increasing my awareness that “not being part of the problem” still makes one part of the problem. I have joined the organization White People 4 Black Lives and am (slowly) learning to fight effectively for racial justice. I will never have the courage of the Greensboro Four, but I strive always to be better than I was the day before.

Early 1960s

• Greensboro got its own Barn Dinner Theatre.
• I performed live comedy for seven years during the aughts. However, I am a terrible cook.

1969

• Governor Robert W. Scott ordered 600 National Guardsmen, a tank, a helicopter, an airplane and several armed personnel carriers to crush an uprising of students from Dudley High School and A&T University, who became frustrated after Dudley’s administration denied their choice for student council president on account of the candidate’s ties to the Black Power movement.

• This is where I stray from Greensboro history: Although they could occasionally be described as authoritarian, my mother’s attempts to quash my rebellions were always warranted.

1978

• The United Arts Council of Greensboro raised $550,000 to save the Carolina Theatre of Greensboro from demolition and reopen it as a community arts performing arts center.

• I rescued several pieces of furniture off the streets of Brooklyn because, free furniture. I never refurbished any of it, but the pieces definitely lent my home “history.”

1983

• Emerald Pointe water park opens in Greensboro.

• Around the same time, my family tied a rope swing to a tree in our side yard. I chipped my tooth once, while swinging, which is generally the reason I wasn’t allowed to go to Emerald Pointe. To wit, a decade later, while going down a slide at a water park on the Outer Banks, I broke my nose.

1993

• Carolyn Allen became the first female mayor of Greensboro.

• Throughout my childhood, my uncle Lucius told me I could one day be the first female president of the United States. After seeing what’s happened in the last few years, I’m relieved I didn’t try to.

2010

• The census determined that 48.33 percent of the population of Greensboro is religiously affiliated, broken down thusly: 11.85 percent Baptist, 10.25 percent Methodist, 3.97  percent Presbyterian, 3.71 percent Roman Catholic, 2.61 percent Penecostal, 1.17 percent Episcopalian, 1.02 percent Latter Day Saints, 0.96 percent Lutheran, and 11.03 percent other Christian denominations (including Greek Orthodox, Quaker, Moravian, Church of Christ and nondenominational); 0.82 percent Islam, 0.60 percent Judaism, and 0.34 percent Eastern religions.

• Similarly, I ascribe to all belief systems a little bit, but am mostly Christian. Side note: I am surprised the Presbyterian population is that small, considering how many bells are in the First Presbyterian Church’s bell choir. I got a real workout as a kid.

Current day Greensboro

• The formerly economically depressed downtown area has seen incredible redevelopment and growth, attracting new businesses, shops, bars and restaurants.

• Since college, and an early foray into sales that followed shortly after, the business areas of my brain were also neglected. Unlike Greensboro, they may never see reinvigoration.

• Greensboro is once again the headquarters of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.

• I have let an errant neighborhood basketball sit in a corner of my lawn for weeks.

• Gateway University Research Park, a joint project between UNCG and A&T, attracts businesses in the nanotech, high-tech, aviation and transportation/logistics sectors.

• I recently decided I should have pursued the sciences. Unlike Greensboro, it’s probably too late for me.

• Greensboro continues to be home to eight universities and colleges.

• Sigh, I used to read. And learn. Novels, science journals, current events. I had intelligent conversations too. Now I clean sippie cups.

• The I-40 & I-85 interchange is always backed up.

• I create similar logjams when I move through parties because I keep stopping to talk to people. Then again, who am I kidding? I don’t attend parties anymore.

So, what have I learned? That Greensboro remains a thriving and innovative business and cultural center. And that I’m at a bit of a stalemate. But even if there’s no longer time for me to throw cocktail parties, read books or bathe regularly, I am buoyed by my confidence in building a happy and supportive home life for my daughter. Perhaps that’s the biggest quality I can endeavor to share with Greensboro, the city that reared me: being a beautiful place to call home.  OH

Jane Borden has exhausted the pertinent details of her life in this month’s column.