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At some point in my life, I became a cook. This has nothing to do with cooking. Well, other than in the obvious ways, but everything to do with self-perception.
I've been cooking since I was ten. My education was suffering in public schools thanks to the 1970s idea that experimental models of education should be embraced without testing. There's a faint possibility that we were the test. Whichever, I can tell you that an open plan school run by computers with minimal teacher interference, is not my ideal learning environment. It was even worse for my poor sister, who, at that age, was slightly deaf and was finding the constant low buzz from the poor acoustics kept her from hearing anything at all.
So Mom decided to rejoin the workforce to pay for private schools. Having been out of the workplace for a while, Mom ended up as a hostess in a restaurant from 4-10 p.m. I, being ten going on eleven, became the family cook.
My mother is not a cook, but she can follow a recipe. She's also absolutely killer at backward planning, and, for the first three months, I came home to long pages from a yellow legal pad with detailed instructions for timing and ingredients. Occasionally, I would be steered to a recipe book, but even then the long yellow sheets told me what time to start and where to find what I needed.
After a few months, I'd be told to pull an old sheet or given money to go to Grand Union to buy the ingredients. I remember getting hit for not understanding the difference between lettuce and cabbage, but, for the most part, these experiences taught me budgetting. I started trying to do things from scratch instead of from tins. I added red wine to Mom's spaghetti sauce recipe and made my own seasoned salt. Many of my experiments failed, but Mom wasn't there to chide and Dad always appreciated the efforts.
Slowly, I began to link things together. I asked to be allowed to make Thanksgiving dinner by myself when I was 11. All in all, I've been cooking for 31 years. But until about 2 years ago, I never thought of myself as a cook.
Is it that I've started inventing my own recipes and planning variations on the old ones? Is it that I can now identify most herbs and spices (even really obscure ones) just by scent? I know it's not baking because I'm still not very good at that. On the other hand, I know I'm not good at it because I've made Sacher Torte from scratch.
I know that when I'm feeling sexy, I enjoy cooking more. Not that I find cooking sexy. Cooking is potentially painful. When I prepared a dayboard for over 100 people with only 3 people helping (one couple helped make the sausages from scratch, about 9 hours. The other person did 7 hours of prep work the day before.) There were over 40 hours of work in that meal. I was exhausted.
However, choosing the meal, finding and adjusting the spicings, the actual serving and seeing the reactions to the food, THAT was sexy beyond belief. I just wish I hadn't been too tired to appreciate the moment.
I've been cooking since I was ten. My education was suffering in public schools thanks to the 1970s idea that experimental models of education should be embraced without testing. There's a faint possibility that we were the test. Whichever, I can tell you that an open plan school run by computers with minimal teacher interference, is not my ideal learning environment. It was even worse for my poor sister, who, at that age, was slightly deaf and was finding the constant low buzz from the poor acoustics kept her from hearing anything at all.
So Mom decided to rejoin the workforce to pay for private schools. Having been out of the workplace for a while, Mom ended up as a hostess in a restaurant from 4-10 p.m. I, being ten going on eleven, became the family cook.
My mother is not a cook, but she can follow a recipe. She's also absolutely killer at backward planning, and, for the first three months, I came home to long pages from a yellow legal pad with detailed instructions for timing and ingredients. Occasionally, I would be steered to a recipe book, but even then the long yellow sheets told me what time to start and where to find what I needed.
After a few months, I'd be told to pull an old sheet or given money to go to Grand Union to buy the ingredients. I remember getting hit for not understanding the difference between lettuce and cabbage, but, for the most part, these experiences taught me budgetting. I started trying to do things from scratch instead of from tins. I added red wine to Mom's spaghetti sauce recipe and made my own seasoned salt. Many of my experiments failed, but Mom wasn't there to chide and Dad always appreciated the efforts.
Slowly, I began to link things together. I asked to be allowed to make Thanksgiving dinner by myself when I was 11. All in all, I've been cooking for 31 years. But until about 2 years ago, I never thought of myself as a cook.
Is it that I've started inventing my own recipes and planning variations on the old ones? Is it that I can now identify most herbs and spices (even really obscure ones) just by scent? I know it's not baking because I'm still not very good at that. On the other hand, I know I'm not good at it because I've made Sacher Torte from scratch.
I know that when I'm feeling sexy, I enjoy cooking more. Not that I find cooking sexy. Cooking is potentially painful. When I prepared a dayboard for over 100 people with only 3 people helping (one couple helped make the sausages from scratch, about 9 hours. The other person did 7 hours of prep work the day before.) There were over 40 hours of work in that meal. I was exhausted.
However, choosing the meal, finding and adjusting the spicings, the actual serving and seeing the reactions to the food, THAT was sexy beyond belief. I just wish I hadn't been too tired to appreciate the moment.
