Cooking and Me

When I was little, I was known to my family as a concoction maker – a person who compiled ridiculous ingredients (and to my mother’s horror, the most expensive) to create a mixture that may look, be, smell, taste, or appear as strange, gross, disgusting, repulsive, spicy, tangy, sweet, or (very rarely) delicious. These “recipes” often included two or more ingredients that would in culinary textbooks never go together. The concoctions varied but here are some that I remember.

Banana Pretzel Pie
1 Banana mashed
18 Pretzels, crunched,
Butter,
Combine butter and pretzels together and smash to the bottom of the pan. Put mashed banana on top for pie filling

Peanut Butter and Jelly Banana Sandwich
Peanut Butter
Strawberry Jelly
Bread
Bananas
Make the sandwich as if you were making a normal sandwich but cut the banana up and put on bread before other ingredients. Voila!

My closest brother was the taste tester for most the products (he did agree to do it -- I didn’t force him…) and most of the time liked it. I mean, really, who doesn't like tuna pie with chocolate frosting? But, as I grew out of the concoction stage, my ability to cook disappeared with it. I managed to scrape by and still make good food up to about last month (did you know it takes three days to make croissants?) when all of the sudden I forgot what to do. Now, I’m not talking frying eggs or making cakes from the mix (I still could do that decently) but it was the stuff that included more than 2 ingredients like bread made in the bread machine and black bean soup. I’ll start with the soup disaster. IT (meaning the recipe) called for one and a half quarts of water. IT didn’t clarify how many cups that was exactly. Thinking one quart was about four cups of water; I did what IT said and put in six cups of water and waited. Mom came home and told me it was too watery. Did IT get yelled at? Noooooo…. I got yelled at and fined $20 for ingredients. I was sure a worse mistake couldn't happen. It was ITS fault—not mine. The next week we had dinner guests who specially ordered my famous potato bread. Oh yeah. I might have not been able to make anything else, but no one in my family could make bread like I could (this is what I was thinking at the time. What’s that bible verse about humility again?). Daydreaming about the many compliments I would receive, I poured in the ingredients carefully and precisely and started it in the oven. 45 minutes later I checked it and it quite hadn’t risen enough. So instead of waiting more, I put it in the clay pot and waited for it to rise the second time. I checked my email, made my bed, did normal everyday stuff and then went down to check it again. Mom had put it in the oven and realizing my part was done, I checked my email again. After a while I went downstairs, expecting nothing really.

Mom was pulling out the bread from the oven when I got to the kitchen and we both stood over the clay pot inhaling slowly. Expecting nothing less than a loaf of spectacular bread, Mom pulled off the lid. It was a fatal mistake. I cringed, Mom gaped, and we both sat in silence. "What in heavens name did you do?" she sputtered finally. I didn't know what to say. Before me was something that resembled a flat, starch white, doughy, repulsive pancake and frankly, something that didn't resemble bread at all. And I was the one responsible for it. What would you tell her? I opened my mouth and moved my lips but words were not being formed. So Mom went down the list. "Okay, so, you put in the flour," I nodded. "Sugar?" Yup. "Salt?" Yes. "Yeast." Of course. I was staring at the way my Moms fist was banging down on the palm of her hand as she spoke. "Butter?" I paused. Did she say yeast? "The yeast!" I cried. "I forgot to put in yeast!" Mom shook her head. "Good luck telling this to your Dad." She clucked. I gulped. We all knew it. Dad was insane for bread. He was the carbohydrate king. We also knew something else.

I was going to die.

The kids hid behind the couches and Mom ran back up the stairs as Dad walked in and sniffed the air. "Wheres the bread" he asked. "Well . . ." I said nervously, "It turned out kind of . . . . Its more like ah, um, . . . it resembles a . . . W. . . E . . . l . . .l" Oh poop. I grabbed the bread and held it up. "What in Gods name happened to my bread?????" he yelled. "She forgot the yeast!" Mom piped in from the hall. I grinned sheepishly as he began a cross examination that would crumble most witnesses. How could I forget the yeast? Why did it have to happen today? What was I going to tell the guests? I reminded him that Jews ate it every year for the Passover. He said we weren't Jewish. I said it didn't matter, we could still choke it down. He said the only person going to choke it down would be me. No matter what I said, nothing would console him. After a painful trip to Safeway, he still wouldn't let it go. I'd let down our guests, my siblings, my mom, and most importantly, him.

I mean, the world might as well just end, right?

Cooking and I, we’ve gone through some difficult times. It’s usually the simple stuff I think I know by heart that turns out horrid. But, thankfully, I'm getting back on track. Mom made me make a loaf of bread the other day and it turned out exactly as it should've. Maybe I was going to fast and I needed to slow down - I'll never know. Lately I've heard that some things just have to get worse before they can get better. I think that explains whats been going on between cooking and me.