Ok, I can cook. Actually, I can cook really well, but I didn’t learn until I was in my 30’s. Until then, I had a pathological fear of the kitchen. Mageirocophobia – fear of cooking. It’s a real word. I’m using it in a sarcastic context and if you suffer from Mageirocophobia, I’m not in any way trying to diminish you. I’m simply trying to describe the power my mom’s Ataxophobia – fear of untidiness (another good one used in sarcastic context).
I think every child wants to help their parents in the kitchen at some time, but in my house, we sort of knew to stay out of mom’s way. There were rules. Rules that had to be followed. Now, I don’t want to delve too far into my mom’s psychological makeup (*cough* OCD *cough*), but we need to talk about a few kitchen-related things here.
1. Measuring
2. Counting
3. Cleanliness
4. Recipes
Measuring Rules
My mom is a GREAT cook. The best. My kids won’t eat any of my attempts to cook ‘outside of the box’ but they will eat anything she puts in front of them and loudly broadcast how good it is. Even vegetables. So, when I tell you how freakish she is about measuring, I just want you to know it’s not because she’s a bad cook. My mom uses a knife to measure. A measuring cup or spoon and a knife. The knife is used on the unsharp side as a straight-edge to slide the unwanted, leftover ingredient off the top of the measuring cup or spoon. For. Every. Measurement. Period. No. Exceptions. My mom owns a set of measuring spoons for a dash, pinch, and smidgen. I’m not lying. You can get one here: http://www.amazon.com/Andersons-Baking-Smidgen-Stainless-Measuring/dp/B000H0UAUI
Who knows? Maybe this is why her food comes out so great. Perfectly measured every time. I am not this exact. In fact, I’m more of a ‘wing it’ personality. If it calls for ½ a cup and I have a clean measuring cup, I’ll eyeball what ½ looks like and go with it. Same with measuring spoons. With vanilla, I don’t even use a measuring spoon. You can’t mess up vanilla. As a child, adhering to my mom’s strict measuring rules was simply counterintuitive to my personality style, so I chose simply not to try cooking.
Counting Rules
Oh, my goodness. I know my mom is reading this and she’s gotten this far and is either laughing hysterically or yelling, “Oh NO!” at her laptop. There were times when I bee-bopped into the kitchen to ask my mom a question and found her in the dreaded Counting Zone. My mom would be hunched over a mixing bowl holding it with one arm while the other arm stirred the contents. Her eyes were laser-locked onto the contents and her mouth was moving silently. She was counting. Because the recipe said to mix for 50 beats. I would freeze in terror. Had she seen or heard me? Had I messed up her count? Could I back away slowly from the Counting Zone without detection? What, oh what, would happen to the recipe if I messed up the COUNT? What if she had to start over? What THEN????? To this day, I refuse to count. I pay minimal attention to blurbs in the recipe about the mixture needing to be smooth or lumpy, but I refuse to get caught in the Counting Zone. Ever.
Cleanliness Rules
Here’s the real reason I didn’t cook until I was in my 30’s. I’m a messy cook. Always have been. And my mom is a neat cook. She cleans as she cooks. When she’s through, it’s like the Boy Scouts have been there. She’s left the kitchen and all its gleaming appliances in better condition than when she got there. I tried this as a kid. I really, really tried. I relegated myself to one recipe – Snickerdoodles – because I thought I could control the ingredients. But flour has a tendency to get away from me. Even to this day. Flour is my kitchen nemesis. I clean and it all looks shiny and then I discover flour on the lip of a drawer, or the underside of my Kitchen Aid mixer head. It’s no different from childhood. My mom always discovered the errant puff of flour and called me into the kitchen for the ‘If-You-Can’t-Keep-The-Kitchen-Clean-Then-You-Can’t-Use-The-Kitchen’ speech. I always nodded, cursed the flour and waited another year to try again.
Recipe Rules
Here, finally, my mom and I have something in common. Probably not for the same reasons, though. You see, we are both recipe cookers. There are cooks who ‘just go with it’ and cooks who use recipes. We are the latter. Even if my mom is intimately familiar with a recipe, she drags it out and consults it. I think her need for recipes is out of her perfectionism and mine is just out of forgetfulness. There are a few things I can cook without a recipe (spaghetti, coconut cookies, martinis, waffles, etc.), but for the most part, I simply can’t remember ingredients lists, measurements, and instructions. I consult the internet every time I need to boil eggs. I wish that were sarcasm, but it isn’t. I can’t remember if you put the eggs in first, before the water boils or after. How long do you boil? Cover on or off? Please don’t attempt to teach me a no-fail way. I’ll forget it. I also can’t remember temperatures and I’m always in a hurry, so I cook everything on high. Last night, I tried frying bacon and had the temperature way too hot. It was bad for the bacon, the kitchen, and my arms. My mom would have been mortified.
Murdered bacon:
Bacon Cooking Technique:
I will give my mom this; she’s only really crazy in her own kitchen. Last year, I made Thanksgiving dinner for the first time in my life and she watched from a safe distance with a look of contented amusement. She only interjected when I freaked out about the bird still being frozen and needing to cook several different things at the same time but at different temperatures. She was calm, cool, and collected in helping me avert crisis and even helped me clean the flour off the countertops. And the ceiling. And the kids. And the dog.
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