A few Sundays ago we were out on the porch having our morning coffee as usual. The hour was a click or two before 7 am. The doves were cooing, the wild turkeys gobbling and a woodpecker was trying his best to chip breakfast from a rotted telephone pole.
Gazing out at our garden, we were happy to see that tendrils from the yellow squash plant were vining along aggressively; green beans were dangling in profusion from the row of fat bushes embedded in the raised trough; the tomatoes were coming on like gangbusters; the indented white heads of garlic were poking up from the earth; and the pimento bush – standing at the center of a round planter with hundreds of radishes at its feet – looked like a music box ballerina attended by a coterie of pixies.
We tried to ignore the corn. Finally unable to hold my tongue, I commented to my weekend-farmer husband that his corn certainly wasn’t – as the song has it – “high as an elephant’s eye.” To the contrary, the smattering of poor anemic sprouts struggled sadly in the dry Hill Country dirt, trying to appear as though they belonged in our otherwise Eden of botanical inflorescence.
Irked that I had marred his tranquil Sunday by pointing out the shortcomings of his short-stalked corn, my weekend-farmer decided to leave the porch and go down amongst his crops to do a little harvesting.
He likes the quiet in his garden; he likes to be quiet in his quiet garden.
And he knew I would refrain from hollering down suggestions or raise my voice to make unflattering comments about his efforts with the corn because it was, after all, very early on that Sunday morning. There are rules of courtesy that must be followed on a day when most people like to sleep in. I usually hold my hollering on Sunday until at least 10:30.
While he puttered around, I read the paper, fried up some bacon (as a peace offering) and set up the bar with all the stuff my weekend-mixologist needs to make our weekend bloody Marys. Outdoors once more and seated on the porch love seat, I reckoned the morning had reached the hour when it was permissible to stretch the vocal cords, so I sang out: “How ya doing down there?”
In deep concentration, with his head bent over a row of green-stalked garlic bulbs, he mumbled something that I was certain I had heard incorrectly. Either that, or he had finally gone insane, which meant I could have all the bacon to myself.
I asked that he repeat whatever he’d said and to repeat it loudly because the clock had reached the hour when everyone within hearing distance of our porch was awake and dressing for church.
“Go get me a pair of pantyhose,” he shouted.
My mind began to dance with impossible possibilities. Trying to ferret out any logical reason why he would make such a strange request, all I could do was stare at him.
I could understand, maybe, if it were Saturday night and my weekend-Romeo wanted to wiggle into beige tights, stick a feather in his cap and play the “Where fore art thou” balcony scene. But to ask for pantyhose on Sunday morning was neither romantic nor sensitive to the sensibilities of church-goers who would soon pass by our garden gate.
Repeating the order – and this time with details – he directed me to bring him an old pair of pantyhose and some scissors. He would need only the panty legs, he said, and not the panty.
Like a good frau, I decided not to argue but bustled indoors and found the objects requested. Then, marching down the porch steps to garden level where he was busy among the bees, I placed my hand against his brow to check for fever and gently asked if he had, at last, gone bonkers.
He sniffed an “I’ll-show-you” dismissal and began snipping away at unneeded panty part. Operation completed, my weekend-Einstein eyed me with the self-satisfied expression of a wizard innovator and explained that the pantyhose legs would be used for hanging up the harvested garlic.
He then began dropping garlic bulbs into a panty hose leg, tying off each bulb separately with double knots, until he had created a most unattractive dangle of dun-colored nylon and spandex that bulged out at various points with golf ball-sized items impossible to identify as fresh garlic.
And just what destination did he have in mind for the two appalling eyesores he had so proudly crafted? Eyesores, by the way, that were personally embarrassing, when we remember my very own legs had once graced the garlic sacks? You guessed it – my kitchen.
Whistling, he carried the two droopy paunchy pouches into the house and retrieved hammer and nails from his tool kit. Desperately trying to prevent my head from exploding, I controlled my voice as I asked just what exactly he intended to do with the hammer and nails.
“Hang up the garlic, of course, so it can dry,” he said.
As nails were being driven into the ledge that juts out over my cutting board, I posed an aesthetic question. “Do you think hanging old pantyhose legs in the kitchen is in good taste? I mean, besides being a questionable addition to our décor, are we making the right choice, healthwise?”
Apparently my weekend-decorator thought it was just fine because he then gave me a pep talk about the convenience I would now enjoy whenever I needed garlic. Simply reach up and snip below the double knot he said.
Cooks are funny people. We would rather have a collection of gleaming, highly polished copper pots hanging in our kitchens than all the jewels in a Sultan’s cache. We want the best knives, quality dishware and utensils, crystal glassware that pings when a toast is made, linen napkins, photo-worthy produce straight from the farmers’ market, pasture-grazed beef, free-range chicken, wild-caught salmon, an oven that has every chance of becoming our best friend, a fridge that holds enough platters to serve 100-plus at a cocktail party and a kitchen that is pristine—spotless, cozy and inviting, and so charmingly arranged that cooking is a pleasure and the meals produced are always a triumph.
There is nothing cozy about garlic-stuffed pantyhose.
You think maybe if I take back the derogatory remarks made about his corn, he might be convinced to consider unhanging what’s hanging in my kitchen?
Writer’s note: My guy surprised his mother the following Sunday on Mother’s Day with another leg from my panty hose drawer, garlic-infused. She was thrilled. Really. And hung it up in her kitchen.