Fish don't fry in the kitchen, beans don't burn on the grill. . . .

September 28, 2010


Since coming home at 6.00, I've been cooking.

Chopping.

Slicing.

Dicing.

Pouring.

Stirring.

Seasoning.

Tasting. . . .

I love to cook. When I am in the kitchen, ipod clipped to my apron, headphones snug in my ears, creating, concocting, inventing, I'm in the zone.

And everyone in my house knows to leave me alone.

Cooking is an achievement, an accomplishment, with a tangible end product I can see when I am finished.

And much of academic work is the exact opposite.

You work and work, write and re-write, change up the material you teach, and yet you never get the sense that you're finished.

Or if you do, your publisher sends you a letter telling you that you need to get your manuscript professionally proofread and then provide an affidavit signed by the proofreader stating that the manuscript has been read by someone who is literate.

Yeah, I'm a bit bitter about that.

Frustrated.

Thought I was finished. Moved on to another project.

Hence cooking.

And baking.

I love baking bread, cookies, cakes, squares. . .

And of course, I love to eat them.

Which is more than evident.

So, tonight's endeavours resulted in a clam chowder, chili, sweet and sour stir fry with rice noodles, and a lovely fruit salad.

I am content in the knowledge that my efforts had a beginning, a middle, and an end.

And that I didn't have to do any of the clean up.





If I'm to be honest, I have not always been the reincarnation of Julia Child you know and love.

When I was younger, I was notorious for making a beautiful batch of cookies, popping them into the oven, and then retiring to the bathroom for some leisurely reading time.

Until the smoke alarm went off.

The dog would start to howl.

My father would come bounding up the basement stairs, demanding to know what the hell was going on, and how come I was on the toilet when I was supposed to be watching the cookies I was baking in the oven and did I KNOW how hard it was going to be to get the stench of burning cookies out of the house.

And then he would smack the smoke alarm with a broom until the damn thing stopped screeching like Ned Flanders when Homer accidentally killed Maude.

This is how I learned that cheese graters were a great way to remove burned bottoms from
cookies.






Sometimes my brother would join me in my culinary escapades.

Before we were old enough to stay home on our own, my brother and I went to a day care.

We were a little older than most of the other kids, which meant we were able to assist with cooking.

And pudding, in one of those Tupperware shaky thingy. . .you add milk to the contents of the pudding pouch, shake the shit out of it, let it sit for a few minutes and voila!

You have creamy, yummy, immediately edible pudding.

Of course, my brother and I assumed that ALL pudding was meant to be concocted in this manner.

We went home, took out three packages of pudding, put it in a huge, empty pickle jar because we sadly lacked the Tupperware shaky thingy, added the pudding and shook.

And shook.

And shook.

And shook.

And shook.

We shook together, hands clutching the sides of the jar, thinking that twice the shaking power would facilitate the process.

My mother walked into the kitchen.

We then learned the difference between pudding you shake. . . .

. . .and the pudding you bake.

Or rather cook on the stove, stirring and stirring, then letting it cool, where you would be greeted with that disgusting thick "skin" covering your pudding.

In order to cook the the vast amount of pudding the way the pudding was intended to be cooked, my mother had to haul out her dutch oven and she made my brother and I stir within an inch of our lives.

And we ate pudding every night for 10 days.

My mother made sure of it.

It was months before I was able to even look at pudding again.

J-E-L-L-O. . . .





My own children eventually became old enough to develop an interest in cooking.

For one of my birthdays, Meredyth took it upon herself to surprise me with a birthday cake.

And like her mother, she eschewed cook books.

Really, who needs them????

I came downstairs to this odd smell, which was quickly followed by this "PHOOM!" coming from inside the oven.

Mer put three cups of baking soda in the cake.

Things that make you go "PHOOM!"

The inside of my oven was coated with a sticky concoction of milk, eggs, baking soda, and a tablespoon of flour.

It still amazes me how quickly that concoction turned into an adhesive that would make denture creams a thing of the past.


Title Lyrics: Movin' On Up, by Jeff Barry and Ja'net Dubois