A Series of Unfortunate Cooking Experiences

It's no wonder that I turned out to be such a terrible cook. I was doomed from the beginning. Growing up in a house with two working parents and two siblings, it was a struggle to get everyone to the dinner table at the same time, let alone prepare a culinary treat for the taste buds. Many nights dinners were served in the back seat of the car on the way to Hockey, Cheerleading, Track , Cross Country, Music Lessons, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Sunday School, or any other after school event.

On the evenings the family was together, dinner was prepared by the culinary geniuses at Pizza Hut. It was not uncommon to see a pizza delivery car in our driveway three times per week. It was quite a miracle that the entire family dodged the plus size racks in clothing stores. The house I grew up in was a double with tenants living beneath us. One particular tenant, who remains a very good friend of the family, became close friends with the pizza delivery boys as they would accidentally knock on their door and need directions around back to our door. This same tenant got married some years latter and as a shower gift, asked for each person in attendance to write their favorite recipe on the back of the invitation. My mother, being at a total loss, wrote the phone numbers to all of our favorite pizza places. We all got a good laugh but knew that this was the best she could do. It's unclear how my mother missed the culinary gene. My grandma is a very good cook (as long as long as you ignore the pound of butter that was used to make it).

In an interesting move my sophomore year, I decided to do my "How To" speech on baking cookies. I've seen my mother do it a few times and even helped lick the spoon when she finished. Surely I could show a bunch if high school students that I could mix ingredients to make a delectable treat. In preparing my speech, I dusted off my mom's recipe box and took out a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. After staring at the recipe for a few minutes, my heart began to pound. My breathing became shallow and my eyesight became blurred. Who makes cookies with tea and soda?!?! Between hysterical laughs and tears rolling down her eyes my mother explained that what the recipe called for was a teaspoon of baking soda. This was going to be harder than I thought. After multiple burned recipes, I finally had enough cookies to bring to the class for sampling. It was a good thing there was no oven in the speech room, or my class would not have learned how to make chocolate chip cookies. Instead they would have learned how to destroy chocolate chip cookies.

Most dinners in my house consisted of pizza, hot dogs, or pasta (made with sauce from a can of course). To this day, my sister wretches at the smell of hot dogs. It was not uncommon to pop your oatmeal into the microwave in the morning only to discover that you had to throw out the canned vegetable from the night before. The same ritual was done at dinner time with the oatmeal. Yes, many canned foods suffered a terrible fate in that microwave. Once we sat down for a family dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. Something was particularly wrong, but no one could quite put their finger on it. Something was burned, but it wasn't the usual burned sauce taste. My mother tried to convince us all that it was the sauce... It was the noodles. Yes, my mother burned the noodles. Now that takes talent.

While my husband, Jason, and I were dating, he was invited to many family dinners. There was a certain set of unspoken guidelines for eating dinner at the house. If you are not eating at the table, you must keep your food above your waste. Jason lost many hot dogs and slices of pizza to the family dog, Pepper, who did not fair as well in her ability to stay skinny in our house. I was mortified when he was invited to a dinner that did not consist of one of my mother's three specialties. On this particular night, we were making a meal that consisted of meat, potatoes, and other sides. The meat and sides turned out just fine, the potatoes suffered a much worse fate. They were cooked in the microwave for 50 minutes... just like it's done in the oven! When they were taken out, all that was left was little charred lumps.

I dodged many cooking bullets in college. I lived in the residence halls all four years and did not have a functional kitchen. After college, I purchased a condo near my parents. It's a wonder I did not starve to death or die of sodium poisoning from the many canned or microwaveable meals. I looked forward to the weekends when Jason would come to visit and share his cooking expertise with me (not that I picked up any of his skills). While we were engaged, my mother-in-law and I were discussing the future and she began to ask me about my contributions to the marriage. After many go arounds about my inability to cook, garden, and even keeps a spotless house, she finally asked "What exactly do you think you will do?" This is when I knew something needed to be done.

Jason and I have been married almost three years now. Our shrubberies are dead, house plants only come to our house to die, and at dinner, my husband sings his favorite line from the Kenny Chesney song "Good Stuff". "Eating burnt suppers the whole first year, and askin' for seconds to keep her from tearin' up." It makes me laugh, then I remember we have been married for much longer than a year.

So I have decided to create this blog as an attempt to provide some humor of my exploits in cooking. At least then, my cooking would be good for something since it is currently not good for human consumption.