“Cooking is like love; it should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”
-Julia Child
As the youngest person in a very large family, your jobs as a child consist of the following: playing, watching TV or generally entertaining yourself in the next room when all of the adults want to discuss adult things, playing (also known as taking care of) younger relatives and being the permanent table setter, food chopper, and pitcher filler. Growing up in my house there were many Cuban mamas that filled a very small kitchen so there was never enough room or time to teach me the fine art of mixing garlic, lemon and cumin to create myriad Cuban delicacies. Many times I sat in the kitchen watching my mother mix, blend and magically deliver any number of dishes, cakes, and general yumminess. She was like a Disney heroine floating around the kitchen adding a pinch of this and a dash of that. It could also be that the cooking gene skipped a generation or the fact that chemistry was not my best subject. I am still in awe of shows like Chopped—how did they think of putting together those ingredients to make that?
I quickly realized as I got older that this whole not cooking has horrible, adverse effects on my thighs and my bank account. There were many nights of Chinese takeout, pizza and burgers in my past. I actually think back and wonder what I ever bought at the grocery store beyond breakfast foods?!
I embraced my non-cooking status.
My old school family members thought I would never find a man. It was as if I had some sort of terrible affliction like leprosy. No man would ever dare come close! I proved them all wrong by falling in love with a man that loved to cook.
Hmm….I could possibly be rewriting history.
I may be conveniently leaving out the fact that I did try to cook in the beginning of our relationship but I felt overwhelmed by the pressure of having to do all that working, figuring out what and how to make difficult dishes like you know…chicken.
Me and the kitchen broke up and in the end the Big Puerto Rican became a chef.
That is a happy ending.
For the past 8 years I have been a blissful patron of my husband’s cooking. I am his biggest fan. I offer up his services like they were my own. I make requests and proclaim how our children will go hungry if he doesn’t leave some sort of easy to create breakfast on weekends. You could say it was laziness or that I was spoiled or that the craziness of work and two children made it impossible for me to think about one more to-do.
I won’t play the busy working mom card here because I know that many of you are in the same place. So I will tell you a secret…..I was not interested. Cooking was fun when I was eight and it was forbidden and a pretend past time where I was Betty Crocker with an apron and stuffed animal children. I was not interested because I just wasn’t good at it. And everyone knew it so instead of getting better, I embraced and joke about my lack of domestic ability. I was a modern woman who could not deal with silly things like dinner.
The time has come for me and the kitchen to become friends again. Today we had a date. When we were here alone, I had my way with the stove, the fridge, a cutting board and some white wine. It was a wild and crazy time. By the time the BPR got home with the girls, dinner was ready, dessert was in the oven and I had a minor steam burn. The result was chicken and mushrooms in a white wine garlic sauce with brown rice. And it was good. I was so inspired that after dinner I asked the kitchen for another date. I promised my BPR at least two nights off. That’s when number 3 hit me. I will become a cook. It won’t be easy and it’s not earth shattering and I imagine there will be many more steam burns or knife cuts but I know my inner Betty Crocker is was way, way, way, down deep in there and I am on the road to bringing her out.
So watch your inbox for a dinner invite from me and Betty soon.
Eat well lovelies!
Me.
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