Jackie Wells-Fauth
One of my oldest friends in the world (according to years together, not age) is also my cousin Melody. Now if you saw us together, some things might indicate that we are related, but in one very important respect, we are very different! She is a fantastic cook and I can barely boil the proverbial water.
We live rather far apart and that is a good thing from the point of view of my waistline. However, when I read about, hear about and even see the food she creates, I gain five or six pounds on the spot! I’m jealous of her ability and I’d also like to camp out at her dining room table!
I cannot, under any circumstances, understand how she could be such a fantastic cook, (and be related) and even worse, I think she really enjoys cooking. Speaking as a woman who met her husband because he was one of the firemen who showed up to put out her supper one night, I can’t say I have ever excelled at, or enjoyed cooking.
The biggest problem, however, is that I really like eating. In a recent post, Melody talked about the various things she has done in her creative kitchen, changing up recipes and even inventing her own cuisine. This is how I know that one of us was adopted, because it’s a big day at my house if I was able to follow the instructions on the back of the mac and cheese box! Any changing up in my recipes is unintentional and indigestible!
I am constantly reading about cooks, like Melody, who discover “accidentally” that something works brilliantly in their cooking routine, and they now use that procedure in everything they make. In my cooking endeavors, I accidentally discovered that if you throw water on a grease fire, it gets bigger. I won’t be using that procedure again anytime soon!
Some women don’t cook at all because their husbands enjoy it so much. Roy doesn’t enjoy cooking either, but he has started doing all the grilling because he discovered that it is possible to eat a steak that has not been charred beyond all identification, if you just do it right. And before you accuse me, I can assure you that I did not deliberately burn things on the grill to get Roy to take over. Before I met him, I didn’t realize there was a degree of cooking things on the grill that didn’t require a fire extinguisher nearby! Could that be one of those procedures that I “accidentally” discovered?
Even the simplest rules to cooking are beyond me. For instance, how do you get the meatloaf in the oven and the potatoes on top of the stove to get done at the same time? We are either eating meatloaf that is raw in the center or potatoes so crunchy they could chip a tooth!
Roy sat down to his evening meal the other night at 5:15. He dished out the potatoes and then looked around for the meat.
“What did you plan to have with these potatoes,” he asked.
“Roast,” I answered.
“Where is it?” he said, munching on potatoes, “By the way, scorched is my favorite way to have potatoes.”
“Okay, Mr. Smart Guy, I’ll tell you where the roast is,” I was irritated by then, “I forgot to thaw it out and so it’s still in the oven. I just got it in 20 minutes ago, so I figure it will be ready about midnight. But I didn’t want the potatoes to get cold.”
“If you ask me, letting them get cold might be the kindest thing you could do,” he said, abandoning his plate. “Wake me up when the roast is done.”
I’d tell him to go to Melody’s house if he doesn’t like my cooking, but I’m afraid he’d do it!
dropsinthewell 