When I was a child, my mother coddled me.  I didn’t have many chores except to make my bed and clean the bathroom once a week.  My mother and father had grown up with outhouses and my mother was repulsed at cleaning the bathroom.  I didn’t mind.  It was an easy chore and it looked so sparkling clean when I finished.  I still don’t mind cleaning the bathroom.

When I was a teenager my mother had to have an operation, and was in the hospital for several days.  My father expected me to cook for him and I didn’t have a clue as what to do.  I remember trying to make gravy.  Luckily, the biscuits were from a tube in the fridge.  I got out my mom’s cookbook (that she never used) and looked up how to make gravy.  My dad laughed at me.  “You don’t know how to make gravy?”  As if every female child is born with the innate ability to make gravy.

I made the gravy and served the biscuits to him.  “You forgot the salt.  This tastes like glue,” he chastised at me.  Well if no one ever taught you how to cook, how in the heck are you supposed to just cook?

Sometime after that, I was working a concession stand in Chautauqua near my home and one of my co-workers made us sloppy joes for lunch.  I made them for my parents a few days later.  I was so proud of myself.

My next venture in cooking was when I ate lasagna for the first time.  I went to the library and got a cook book with the recipe and my mother and I made lasagna.  Daddy didn’t like it because he didn’t like cooked cheese.  (Who doesn’t like cooked cheese?)

Another thing that my mother would let me make using her kitchen was these most horrible chocolate oatmeal cookies that you didn’t bake.  I made them once for my girls when they were little and realized how awful they really were.

I was allowed on occasion to get a Chef Boyardee pizza mix and make a pizza for myself.

When I moved to Middletown to attend college, my roommate, Pat, and I cooked for ourselves frequently.  Our specialty was tuna casserole.  I still love tuna casserole.  Pat made it for me when I visited her a few years ago.

That next summer I worked as the fountain girl at a local Frisch’s Big Boy restaurant.  The head cook taught me to make salads, so they were ready made for the waitresses.  I still love to make salads and have perfected my Big Ass Salad which people ask me to bring to pot lucks frequently.

Once when the hubster and I were first married we didn’t have a lot of cash to buy groceries.  We purchased a cooked canned chicken and the cashier misread the label and we paid 29 cents for the thing instead of the $4.29 it was marked as.  We felt like we had won the lottery.  We made the absolute worst Chicken Cacciatore out of it and it was a true feast.

When my girls were little I was determined that they would not grow up not knowing how to cook.  They sat on the kitchen counters when I cooked and I explained everything I did.  They smelled the herbs and spices as I added them to my concoction.  Jess didn’t like onions at all and so I kept them separate from my recipes.

Once Addi insisted that she would turn the pancakes.  I put her on a stool and gave her the spatula.  She unfortunately used her finger to help flip the pancake and burned her finger.  You’d have thought she set her whole hand on fire.  We then learned to use a chopstick to help turn the pancake.

When the girls were a bit older I insisted that they make at least one meal every week during the summer.  Addi came up with this recipe for turkey meat balls, and the sauce was a mixture of apricot jam and mayonnaise.  It was delicious!  Jess read a recipe on the back of the soy sauce and made Firey Chicken and it was wonderful also.

My girls grew up to love cooking as much as I do.  I believe I love to cook because I love to eat.  And I love to try new things.

Peace be with you.