Ingredients Revisited

A few days ago I was going on about Marcella Hazan's last book, a description of all the ingredients the aspiring cook might encounter in performing that task..  I was enchanted, told my husband that I wanted to go to Sarasota's weekly Saturday morning fresh vegetable market to find "ingredients," well, for what?  her famous tomato sauce and then a large salad of cooked vegetables as the second course.  Our dinner guest was a vegetarian which was why I made this selection.  The tomato sauce was even easier that I had anticipated since I just pulled a box of Pome, marvelous tomatoes canned in a box, fresh as can be, flavorful, imported from Italy, and agreeable to the dictates of the Hazan recipe.  For the vegetable salad I got onions, asparagus instead of green beans (didn't seem to find any at the market), beets already cooked and sealed in plastic, red peppers, zucchinis--my invention--, and then instead of potatoes I went with garbanzo beans from Goya because I had read about them in Hazan's latest disquisition on ingredients.  A friend said I might sautée them a bit to brown them up and give them more character. What an afternoon I had!  And all I have to say is: Never Again!  I searched my memory to try to recall: did I really go to all that effort back in the days when I was a daily cook and housekeeper?  Of course, then I was so much younger, now the fingers are so bent and stiff, standing in the kitchen exhausts me, and I can't remember what I am doing from moment to moment.  Each one of the vegetables seemed to require a different baking or broiling situation, not to mention cutting them up or peeling them, like flattening the peppers, getting the seeds out, getting all under the broiler then skinning them.  It is a miracle I did not burn my fingers taking things in and out of the stove's one oven, my wrists can suddenly go so limp.  And I congratulated myself that I managed to get the lids off the high end olive oil and vinegar I bought for this extravaganza.  I can rarely manage to open anything anymore.  I started at three, our guest was coming at six.  Ten to six it was all ready even the table set, and I jumped into a quick shower and shave.  Through it all I was in constant communication with my family since the day was also given over to the news of the birth of my second great grandchild, a little boy, in Canada.  The door bell rang, I adjusted my clothes, marched into the living room called out to my husband to present himself.  And the dinner was on.  I sank into a chair poured us wine and in a short while my husband was kind enough to serve the potato gnocchi over the famous tomato sauce, and then on to plates of salad.  Our guest brought home made biscotti, and good time was had by all, but, no, never again.  But then again, just as my granddaughter was probably thinking "never again," who knows in a year or so?  Who knows if I won't get another insane urge to check out ingredients?