The Empty Pot
Cooking is not my strong point. When people ask, "What would you do if you could win a million dollars?" my first thought is not to go on a cruise or quit working, it is to hire someone to cook for me once a day.
If there was a scale measuring cook-worthiness ranging from:
a chef in a four star restaurant (best)
a person capable of cooking satisfactory meals for a family (middling)
someone who can't boil water (Why do you even try?)
I would fall a bit over halfway between the "can't boil water" cook and the family cook:
-Laelia- know basics (sometimes), can follow recipes (if I'm not too distracted or impatient), and can improvise with ingredients a little (with potential disappointing results)
Baking, for some reason, is not a problem for me. I have been baking on my own since I was in middle school and my creations were highly received. A couple of years ago, I taught myself how to bake my own bread and I like to experiment with different ingredients such as making cheese bread or rosemary-olive bread. Cooking, I have decided, is a different science. While I may be good at Anatomy and Physiology, it doesn't follow that I'll have a knack for Physics.
Because I was prone to react allergically to eggs for 14 years, I didn't learn to cook eggs, even scrambled, until I was in my twenties. When I was 25, I had to ask a friend how to make rice. Until the end of last year, I couldn't figure out why my baked chicken recipes kept coming out so bland and watery. Apparently it is necessary to thaw chicken before baking it.
I set the fire alarm off every time I make pancakes, but I make a nice eggplant parmesan or vegetable tempura. The other day, I learned that not all cheeses melt the same after I tried making a "nacho" cheese sauce from scratch and substituted the recipe's Monterrey Jack cheese with the shredded mozzarella I had in the fridge. It still tasted pretty good, if you don't mind your cheese sauce spiraling down in thick ribbons and hardening onto your chips when it cools, connecting each chip like a garland for some gringo's idea of Mexican fiesta decor.
On top of my cooking deficiencies, I have a few major food intolerances (most milk products, salmon) or allergies (chocolate, peanuts, almonds) which make cooking for myself more frustrating. Large grocery stores with their miles of aisles filled with a plethora of green bean or noodle choices overwhelm me to the point that a shopping trip to buy ten items can take up to an hour or more. Things naturally take longer when you're not only uninspired to cook for yourself, but you also have to read every label in detail.
I have tried buying a few cookbooks. They must have full page, color photographs of the finished product or I'll never "get around" to cooking from the recipes. Unless it is a baking cookbook, the ones with only words do nothing to inspire me to cook. Since I love soups, I bought a soup cookbook with vibrant photos of the steps and of the final soup garnished in all its glory. I'm happy to report that I actually cook from that book! I love the advent of online venues such as Allrecipes.com, Pinterest, and food sites because the community aspect of adapting recipes, posting photos and videos, sharing tips for the process, writing descriptions of the food, makes cooking seem less boring to someone like me. I don't enjoy reading food blogs like some people read Harry Potter books, but I use them once in a while when I'm stuck. These resources have made it easier to find recipes for using a favorite vegetable, substitution food, or spice in a way that I would never have come up with via my own limited cooking experience.
At some point, I hope to take a few Continuing Education classes through my local community college in order to develop my cooking skills to a more livable range. I also signed up to receive daily emails from Allrecipes.com with meal ideas, but I've found that the pressure is too daunting. The Allrecipes folder in my email is filled with 200 recipes I have never tried to make. On that note, my stomach is growling more as I write this. Time to go make dinner. Maybe I'll open a can of soup.
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