Cooking Failures

Tag: cooking

  • The Summer I Could Cook

    About seven years ago, my brother graduated from high school. He lived in Florida and he needed a little change of scenery for the summer. He wanted to get away and get his thoughts together and try to figure out what he was doing with his life. That’s the big question all 18-year-olds have. So, we decided he would come stay with me for the summer. I had a friend who owned an electric company and was looking for workers, so I got him a summer job. The plan was he would come for the summer and then go back to Florida and most likely go to community college there.

    Honestly, I do not remember what I fed my kids before my brother came to stay with me, but it must have been something, right? I mean they are still alive. It might’ve been those Purdue chicken nuggets. They are technically not frozen. They are sort of fresh and refrigerated so they seemed healthier to me. I was also pretty good at making Kraft mac & cheese, and really good at making those Bob Evans microwave mashed potatoes. I think I also excelled at toasting a piece of bread, then putting a slice of super processed American cheese on it and cutting it up in little squares. I think I did try to throw in a piece of fruit and some frozen peas sometimes. It must’ve been something like that.

    But that summer, when my brother was here, I was going to pretend I could cook. Just for the summer. I could fake it for three months. I was excited because I always wanted to be one of those people who cook. Even a fake person who could cook. Maybe after three months of pretending I might really turn into one of those people who can cook. Spoiler alert, I didn’t. But I really did a great job of faking it. Kind of.

    I must first share that my brother has never really had a home-cooked meal. He probably has once or twice when he went to friends’ houses but as far as his own house and growing up, he never had a home-cooked meal. They went out for every single meal. Going out to a restaurant was the norm for him and he was actually quite sick of it.  I already had that going for me because first, he had no idea what a home-cooked meal was or what it was really supposed to taste like so that definitely worked to my advantage. I’m not saying my food would be better than a restaurant but maybe it comes with different expectations. This is not a restaurant! Lower your expectations!

    Another advantage I had was that he liked everything. Everything.  I made lemon chicken that summer that was so sour it made everyone’s face pucker when they tried it.  But not my brother, he ate it and said it was good.  Hey- maybe he doesn’t like everything… Maybe he was just being polite.

    Every meal was so stressful because I had to act like it was simple for me. Faking who you are every day is exhausting.  I had to act like I was easily whipping everything together like Martha Stewart when really I was sweating bullets, trying not to be intimidated by the meat, and just praying that the meal came out edible. I was up late Googling recipes and then reading them over and over and over memorizing them so it would look effortless when I made them. I was also hoping that during this experiment I would find something that my kids would like. That didn’t happen. But the summer went on and I became good at faking I was a person who can cook and I think my brother actually believed me.  Or he’s good at faking it too.

    Time flies as it often does and finally, it was mid-August. My brother was good company, and the kids loved him. I would miss my brother very much BUT I also was a little relieved to be able to go back to being the woman who cannot cook. After much discussion though, it was decided that my brother would not return back to Florida. He would stay here and work and go to the local community college.

    I called my mom to share the news with her, and I was crying hysterically when I told her. She replied, “You love Lucas! You love having him there! Why in the world are you crying?”

    I said, between sniffles and sobs, “Now I’m going to have to pretend to cook forever!”

    But I didn’t. I came clean and told my brother I cannot cook.  Maybe he knew?  I like to think not because I faked it so well.  He didn’t care about my cooking, and I saw that it was silly to try to be something I am not to impress someone.  Yes, I know that is a lesson I should have learned 20 years ago.

    Now, six years since that summer, my brother and I are a cooking failure team.  We have our own little failure club.  Of course, anyone is welcome to join but no one does.  Does anyone really want to be a failure?  He’s my little sous chef and we cook our failures together. We hold our breath in anticipation, watching my kids take the first bite.  After three bites they declare they don’t like it, go back upstairs to play video games, and my brother and I high five and shrug.  We’ll try again tomorrow we say. You can’t win them all.  Or any in this case.

  • Cooking Failures

    The road to my cooking failures.  Where did it begin?  Did my mom teach me how to cook? Not really.  Do I remember my mom cooking?  I remember cous cous.  Some stew we ate in Mauritania with our hands that became a staple growing up.  It was delicious.  Some sort of tomato-based sauce with potatoes and other vegetables.  The cous cous would soak into the sauce.  It was delicious.  I remember pork chops and apple sauce.  I remember spaghetti but mostly because my little sister had a spaghetti shirt she had to wear every time we ate spaghetti. She was a bit of a slob.

    Well, it’s not fair to blame my mother.  Plenty of people grow up without their mom “teaching them how to cook” and still become successful at cooking.  No, I am special.  Not a regular failure.  Not a sometimes failure.  I am an unbelievable cooking failure.  And this is my story.

    I always dreamed of being the perfect housewife and mother.  Ever since I was eight years old playing with my bald cabbage patch kid, Benedict Arnold.  Yes, that was really the name he came with.  Sure, I wanted a job like being a teacher probably but mostly I just wanted to be a mom and a housewife.  To clean the house while skipping around singing Christmas carols making wonderful organic meals for my children.  They would clean their plates with smiles on their cute little faces.  My husband would come home to a delicious home cooked meal. My mom used to tell me that when her dad ate her mom’s cooking, he would mmmm mmmm mmmm with pleasure because the food was so good.  That is what I pictured my husband doing while eating my home cooked meals. Never happened.  Not once. Not even close.

    Of course, my kids would love veggies and almonds and probably even tofu. Fast forward to 2008 where I would peel off the outside of McDonald’s chicken nuggets and chase my one year old kid around the house shoving bites of the insides into his mouth every few minutes. Yes yes, I know about choking and how your kid should only eat sitting in a chair.  I really tried.  I swear I did.

    Did my husband ever come home to a delicious home cooked meal?  Well, there was one crock pot recipe I got from Real Simple that my husband liked.

    But most nights…. My son liked to “cook dinner for daddy” so when daddy got home from work, he’d have dinner.  Before he went to bed, Dylan would make his daddy dinner.  In a big bowl he would mix anything. Cereal, mayonnaise, salad dressing, ketchup, fruit snacks, milk.  He thought he was a great three-year-old chef.  He would leave it out for daddy.  And that is what my husband came home to.  He would look at it, dump it, and every morning tell Dylan it was delicious.  No wonder we are divorced. Ok, there might be a few reasons other than my cooking but that is up there.

    Meat scared me.  I’ve been vegetarian since 1993.  I remember putting meat in the pan and trying to psych the meat out.  I would literally talk to the meat in the pan out loud and say, “I’m not scared of you!! You will not intimidate me, beef!!” But the meat always intimidated me.  It felt good though to try to be brave in front of meat. Fake meat bravery.  The meat never believed it.

    My mom always said that anyone could cook if they could read a recipe.  Well, this ONE time (and only this one time) my mom was wrong.  Very very wrong.  Because I could read a recipe no problem.  I’m actually great at reading.  I read all the time.  English was my favorite subject.  But still, reading did not help in the cooking department.

    I will say my brother Lucas loves my cooking and my dogs too.  So it can’t be that bad, you are thinking.  Yes yes it can.  They are not good judges. Do not trust brothers or dogs.  Trust kids.  Who never like a single thing I cook. Not a single thing.

    I get recipes from great cooks.  I have friends who could probably win cooking contests.  They give me recipes and try to teach me to cook.  A for effort. I joke that when they are on their deathbed their one dying regret will be that they could not teach Brita to cook.  We joke but it’s a very likely possibility.  Poor friends.

    Also, I was going to have that perfect textbook baby who not only ate anything I put in front of him, but also did all those things babies were supposed to do.  Like nap, go to bed, not climb up walls, play with their cute little baby toys in an age appropriate manner, sit on the kitchen floor looking all sweet and playing happily with their toys while I cooked and slaved in the kitchen.  You know, the kind of kid that you could leave in the next room for a minute to get other things done.  The kind that would sit happily in the front of the grocery cart chewing a cracker with an adorable smile on his face while you leisurely strolled around the grocery store picking organic items and carefully planning elaborate meals. I didn’t get that baby.  I had the one that I could not take my eyes off for a second.  A SECOND.  I know what you are thinking but honestly, it didn’t matter how baby proofed my house was.  My house was practically a preschool classroom.  Didn’t matter.

    So that didn’t leave a lot of time for my cooking dream but once again, it’s not fair to blame my kid.  Plenty of parents have difficult… umm.  I mean different children and they still manage to cook delicious and mouth-watering meals for their hard working husbands. 

    You know how in the movies, the husband comes home late from work and the wife is waiting, looking radiant, probably wearing a dress and heels, pearls too, (I don’t think I own heels. Or pearls) the baby is sleeping soundly in his crib (looking angelic while snuggling his lovey) the house is spotless, and a warm dinner is waiting on the table.  There are probably candles lit and jazz music or some shit like that.  I wanted that.  I pictured that.  I would be perfect at that. 

    But it was nothing like that.  First, my kid didn’t go to bed.  I’m not sure he slept the first five years of his life at all.  Not just he stays up a little late (hee hee- cute innocent laughs by perfect housewives who say this because their kid stayed up until 8:15) EYE ROLL!! He NEVER slept.  You think I’m exaggerating.  I’m not.

    But still, I had to feed my kid, right?  Oh, I pictured him liking everything I gave him.  I imagined cutting up avocados and cauliflower and putting it on his little highchair tray while he gobbled in up happily.  Not too quickly though because I had taught him about chewing carefully and not choking. And never throwing food on the floor because that is a waste.  And we didn’t have a dog then. 

    I imagined myself making my own baby food of course.  Doesn’t everyone?  It’s the sign of a good mother.  In my imagination I would be slaving for hours in the kitchen while my baby sat on the kitchen floor happily playing with his toys.  We would sing songs and nursery rhymes.  I would talk through how I was making the baby food and how delicious it would be.  I know the importance of talking to your baby.  Just talk and talk about anything.  Just so he could hear your voice and develop amazing language skills. I’d label all the jars of baby food with a freaking label maker.

    Well first of all, my baby didn’t like anything.  Except cheese (I’m proud of this because cheese is my favorite food.  He must have inherited that from me), goldfish, saltines, maybe something else.  But nothing he was supposed to eat.

    I’d try cereal or a banana for breakfast.  They would end up on the floor.  No dog as I mentioned before.  I’d try to feed him in the highchair, but this kid could only be contained for 7.8 seconds if I was lucky.  Just enough time to throw it all on the floor and scream to be free.

    I soon realized in addition to being contained, the other problem was this kid could not sit still.  I bought one of those cute little tables where you see kids sitting all happily and eating their food.  Usually gazing out a window or something.  Well, my kid would not sit for longer than 30 seconds.  I even tried TV for distraction.  I know, I know, TV is bad for babies that young.  It didn’t work.

    So instead of feeding him chicken cordon bleu off a tiny Donald duck fork while he happily sat in his booster chair up at the table while we talked about our fun adventures of the day, his dinner consisted of turkey lunch meat, cut up cheese sticks, frozen peas (yes, I didn’t even bother to cook them) and apples.  All cut up in those cute little plates with all the different departments. And I fed it to him while shoving pieces in his mouth with my fingers as he was running by or standing on his train table.  My dinner consisted of whatever was leftover on his cute little plate.  Except not the meat since I have been vegetarian for over 30 years.  So, when my husband got home after his long day at work, I was still chasing the kid around, (hours after his bedtime) and hubby had to fend for himself for dinner. As you see, I had the best intentions.  It was all going to work out perfectly.  Like a dream come true.