Reflections on Cooking

At my mother’s house, when someone went into the kitchen to prepare a meal it was referred to as making the meal. “I’m going to go make dinner.” “I just made hot cocoa.” “Rose is bringing the lamb; I’m making soup.” Once my sister and brother-in-law moved in with us, he had three things to say to me every day. “Get off the phone.” “Stand up straight.” “You don’t make food; you prepare food.” I hated all three. I still refer to cooking as making something, even though I know he was right. I’ve mentioned that I became the family chef at a young age, had no lessons in food preparation, was afraid of the oven, and served nothing but pan fried meats and canned vegetables. What puzzles me to this day was how I paid for the fresh chops and steaks I picked up at the corner butcher shop when I got off the bus on my way home from school. My parents must have picked up cases of canned vegetables to or from work. Cans always greeted me whenever I opened the pantry door. Yet it was my job to stop at the butcher shop and pick out the slab of the day to feed my father: lamb or beef, all equally unrecognizable once I’d finished frying them to death in Crisco. Boiled chicken came later. No doubt, my parents ran up a tab with the butcher because I have no memory of cash changing hands. All the butcher had to do was entertain himself at my expense. Me: “May I have two lamb chops, please?” Butcher: “Do you want them from the right side or the left side of the lamb?” Me: “How many chicken necks do I need to make soup?” Butcher: “How many times are you going to dip them in the water?” This went on until I was about 15. My folks sold the bar, Ma retired forever, and she made our dinners. I washed the dishes. There were four reasons my first husband didn’t starve to death the first year we were married. 1.) Aunt Rose fed us twice a week and sent home leftovers. 2.) Ma fed us once a week and sent home care packages. 3.) Grocery stores promoted fresh vegetable sales by placing tear-off sheets above the veggies with written instructions that told you what you were holding in your hand and how to cook it. 4.) Frozen foods in sealed bags that could be boiled in water had been invented. One day my hungry husband arrived home to find four covered pots on the stove, simmering away. He eagerly picked up lid after lid only to find himself nose deep in boiling water. I was just waiting for him to get home before I popped a frozen bag into each pot. The first time we had a guest to dinner, I cooked a roast of some sort. Before the victim arrived, I took the roast out of the oven and attempted to carve it. My serrated blade made no dent. Sawing harder, I accidentally shoved the roast off the plate and onto the floor where it bounced three times. That’s when I threw it into the trash can, dashed across the street to the hamburger stand, and regaled our guest with burgers and fries. Over the years, and thanks to handy appliances and helpful cookbooks, things improved at the dinner table. Then we entered our enforced Vegetarian Era. (My husband decided he would attain Nirvana faster if he was a vegetarian, even though he refused to eat anything green that wasn’t a green bean. I did a lot with peanut butter and powdered milk.) Our poor daughter had to go to school with sandwiches made from flatbread because I hadn’t yet gotten the hang of yeast. Everything was made from scratch, including baby food for the second born. This did not prevent them from developing asthma, allergies, and every other disorder a natural food diet was supposed to prevent. This same downtrodden daughter longed for store-bought birthday cakes, but had to suffer homemade, except for the year when there was a crack in the top layer and I filled it with so much frosting that half the cake fell on the floor. It did not bounce; it oozed. I made her father rush out and buy a real cake from a real store with real Happy Birthday icing letters. She was ecstatic. Still, it wasn’t all bad. There was the time Susan and I used our babies’ plastic bathtubs to mix up enough coleslaw to literally feed 120 convention attendees. Plus, people kept accepting my dinner invitations. When husband One moved me into husband Two’s rented house, I had to use an electric skillet because there was no stove. The first thing I prepared was a pork roast. Husband Two was so thrilled with my skillet meals, he saw no reason to buy a stove. I soon changed his mind. Then I discovered crockpots and all my problems were solved. (Three out of the four original family members were really glad to see the end of the Vegetarian Era. Sometimes, when daddy was away, we would sneak out to McDonalds for cheeseburgers or The Hat for pastrami sandwiches and eat them in the car. Don’t tell him.) Thousands of meals and hundreds of dinner parties later, living the life of a single woman, I found my food preparation Goddess. Ina Garten. She cooked the way I liked to eat, with three main ingredients: butter, whole cream, and more butter. I became her slave. Ina guided me to the best shortbread cookies known to mankind. I hosted regular dinner parties so I could test every meal in every cookbook she published. I bought and used each appliance and all the utensils she featured on her shows. Everyone benefited. Then l got sick and that was the end of my Ina Era. The thing about cooking is you have to go into the kitchen and stand there and do something. It takes energy, strength, interest, all of which I lacked. Now I eat Trader Joe’s food. It’s not as good as Ina’s, but you can buy it in smaller quantities and you don’t have to stand in the kitchen. However, after cleaning my cupboards and falling in love with my plates and cups again, I thought I’d give dinner parties of 3-4 guests the old college try, mainly as an excuse to trot out the china. I needed practice, though, because I’d forgotten how cook and had lost my self confidence. So I invited two kindhearted friends over for lunch, fed them salads and sorbet, and that was that. I gave up. When you come to my house, I can give you a tour of my spotless kitchen stocked with KitchenAid appliances, thanks to Ina. There’s a gorgeous red enamel-covered cast iron pot on the center burner of the stovetop. It gets dusted every two weeks whether it needs it or not. I refer to it as one of my favorite Objets d’Art.