There are certain dishes that, to this day, make me think of my childhood. Meatballs with rice covered by a sweet tomato sauce. Stroganoff made with thick, tender noodles and slices of rich beef. Homemade pizza and meat tacos as well as peach cobbler made from scratch. I remember my mother spending hours in the kitchen whipping up these meals in order to feed her hungry young’ens. Their delicious scents would waft through the house and our mouths would begin to water. We’d pop in every so often to ask if she needed help or if dinner was almost ready. Sometimes she accepted our meager offers and other times she sent us on our way. When dinner was ready, we’d dive with gusto and wouldn’t stop until our plates were clean.
Out of all of those delightful dishes that my mom prepared, how many of them do you think I learned how to make? That’s right: none.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. My mother insists that she taught me the basics and that every so often, when I’d cook some chicken breasts or try to make a pie, she would raise her hopes that this was it! This was the time that I would finally catch on and she would know that her hard work had not been in vain! Of course those hopes were quickly dashed as soon as I burned something or decided to skip cooking altogether and just make a salad.
I look back on those years with limited recollection of having spent any time in the kitchen. I know my mother said I was there and I’ve seen pictures of it, but I don’t remember it. Perhaps it was so painful that I merely chose to block it out? Or perhaps I was simply putting in face time for my mother’s sake so that she wouldn’t worry about my lack of culinary skills.
All I know is that I came away from my childhood with no knowledge of how to cook for myself. I eventually learned how to make some of the staples such as cheese omelets and spaghetti. But for the life of me, I don’t know how to make a casserole and I wouldn’t have any idea how to feed a family of more than two. As it is, when we have a dinner party at our house, the CPA and I pull out the one recipe that we know how to make and drop the ingredients into the crockpot. That’s probably why we don’t invite the same friends over more than once.
Why am I telling you about my inadequecies in the kitchen? Because I’m worried. Until now, the CPA and I have gotten by very well on prepared, store-bought meals and boxes of Hamburger Helper. But pretty soon we hope to have little ones running around. Little ones who deserves more than that. Little ones who will someday grow up and need to cook for themselves. And I don’t want to be the one they blame for not knowing how.
What about you – can you cook? Did you grow up cooking or was it something you picked up later? Is there hope?
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). Thankfully my husband is very easy to please when it comes to food. I’m really working on moving away from processed foods, so hopefully my ‘culinary’ side will develop without too many mishaps.
)) but only 3 weeks later I had my first party together with my friend and we entertained 75 (!!!!) people. We made quiches (using all the ovens in the dorm) with different toppings and a nice dessert. Since then I love to cook, have taught myself everything, but usually follow recipes. In the meantime I have switched my cooking to strictly vegetarian as my partner is vegi. And my favourite recipe is still the quiche one from that party. It’s really not difficult at all to cook, you just shouldn’t talk yourself into not being able etc. Everybody can cook.
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