Finally, a break from the heat. It’s chilly enough for fleece pullovers and jeans today. This morning when I woke up, the breeze and the sunshine made ripples of leaf shadows on the window shades. And when I opened all the windows and felt the cool air, I knew it was time to cook.
I’ve come to enjoy cooking. This newfound enjoyment amazes me, because I grew up afraid of cooking. For reasons I’ll never understand, my mother always made fun of my cooking. She used to say that someday I’d write a cookbook called What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You. I laughed along with her whenever she said it, so she thinks I thought it was funny. But really what I was thinking was: why won’t you teach me to cook?
I’m not even sure why she started saying that in the first place. I don’t recall ever spending a lot of time in the kitchen creating culinary disasters. I remember one year she and I baked cookies together, and I don’t think I screwed anything up. We only baked together that one year, but every year after, I baked those same cookies. I got to the point where I’d memorized those recipes, and could mix them up in my sleep. As a young adult, I’d make them for office holiday parties, and people would beg me to make them again and again. So I can’t have been a complete disaster in the kitchen, right?
It has taken me years and countless evenings spent crying over botched dinners to overcome this particular little internalized message. But I’m happy to report that I have now reached a point in my adult life where I can shrug and pull out the peanut butter and jelly when a recipe doesn’t come out quite right. I’ve even reached the point where I’m able to modify existing recipes to accomodate my own tastes.
So, today there’s homemade soup simmering on my stove, and bread on the rise. And when the girls come to me and ask to help make the bread, I’ll break off little sections of the dough and let them make rolls. In fact, I might just make all of it into rolls, even though the recipe calls for loaf pans. And when it’s time to brush the dough with egg, I’ll mediate the bickering and help them take turns and help them not smoosh the dough too much. But if they do smoosh the dough a bit too much, I’ll smile and tell them that it all tastes the same in the end. And then — call me crazy — I’ll thank them for their help, and tell them how great they are at cooking.
As someone who’s actually tasted one of your soup recipes, I can say I wish I had a bowl of that right now! YUM!
Also – You should do your part to improve the world and post that oatmeal lace cookie recipe (that’s the one, isn’t it?) You really are famous for that and I’m sure we’d all love to have it. They are DEE-lish.
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xo
RegularSis
You are such a good Mama! My Mom always compliments my cooking, but when I asked her why she never taught me to cook, she said I never wanted to. She is probably right, but I can’t remember. Oh well.
Thanks Robinella. I can’t remember ever asking my mom to teach me to cook either. Of oourse, I never asked to learn to do the dishes, but she had no problem teaching me that one.
RegularSis, that’s so funny that you remember those cookies. For years, I wouldn’t give out that recipe. And then I realized that if I started giving out the recipe, I wouldn’t always have to be the one baking them. They can be time consuming. So I did eventually give that one out.
And then I realized that keeping secret recipes is just sort of rude. We should share! And who the hell am I anyway? Colonel Sanders?
They really are a Christmas cookie, though. I think I’ll post that recipe this December, as a gift to everyone who reads this blog.
That is a wonderful post. It is so great you overcame the feelings that came with your moms comments, and greater yet that you are able to change that for your own children. I too love to cook, and my mom did teach us, or rather left us to our own devices in the kitchen. To this day, she says her girls are better cooks than she. She grew up very poor with very little and didn’t learn too cook at home, but my dad’s mom guided her some after my parents married, and I think my mom is a pretty good cook and I learnt a lot from her. Our kids 10 to 16 can all cook. During the school year they each have a night of the week where they do what is on the menu plan or a tell them what to do next or with the 10 year old, I work in the kitchen with her. They have fend for yourself breakfast and lunch and some of the thing they were able to make with awesome seasoning at the ages of 8 or 9 is completely amazing.
You are such an awesome mom, teaching them to cook and giving them confidence in the kitchen.
Thank you, Dawn. The way your children are in the kitchen sounds quite a bit like the way I hope my girls will be someday.
Where do you live? I am so jealous that you’re having fall weather already! It’s been in the 100′s here for the past couple weeks, and tonight we got the first rain we’ve had in weeks!
Hey Rachel! We’re in eastern PA. It’s been cool and rainy here for about 5 days now. But the heat will return by Friday. Still, it’s been a nice change these past few days.