While some people are known for their cooking, I am known for not cooking. Not only did I never learn to cook, I’ve never been even interested.
For me, the kitchen represents a death trap; there are sharp things that will cut me, and hot things waiting to burn me, making a real hazardous zone for an accident prone person. Kitchens are not ADD friendly.
How have I survived this long? My newlywed husband quickly chalked my ineptness in the kitchen to “yet another defect.” This followed an episode of tears after he remarked that my home baked apple pie was “runny.” Once, I resorted to phoning his mother to find out how to make dumplings: she asked me, “floaters or sinkers?”
I was not having enjoying my new role, but, fortunately, my husband was ready to take over — he loved to cook! What is more, he loved grocery shopping, which I found stressful to the point where even walking into Wegman’s was enough to provoke a panic attack.
My husband passed away 25 years ago, and I have gone into survival mode: frozen dinners, take out, heat and eat, as well as frequently eating out. I cannot follow a recipe that has more than three steps, or five ingredients. I made a quiche, but left out the eggs. The rice I cooked turned out to be orzo. If it can be cooked, I can burn it — every pot and pan I own has scald burns.
As you can tell, I do occasionally venture into the kitchen, but without confidence. The result may be food, but the kitchen is a disaster — there is food on the floor, the walls, and sometimes the ceiling; plus, my clothes are inevitably stained, even ruined. Meals take up entirely too much time with planning, shopping, putting groceries away, cooking and cleaning up.
I like to think that my shortcomings in the kitchen are compensated for by my imagination and venturous nature. No milk for the cereal? Just use orange juice instead, it’s delicious, although not exactly company food. I don’t cook, I concoct; that is, I throw things together. Usually, my concoctions are a once in a lifetime production, never to be repeated.
For instance, last week a neighbor gave me some rhubarb. Well, I thought, I’ll just boil it down to make some “rhubarb sauce.” Then, someone mentioned how good strawberries and rhubarb are together, and I had some fresh strawberries and threw them in the boil. Rhubarb is well nigh inedible without sugar, but I don’t keep sugar in my house. However, a recent foray to Burger King resulted in an unused packet of syrup, so I added syrup. As my husband would say, “it was runny.”
One day following, I thought I’d like a smoothie for lunch. But that sounded really involved— I’d have to take out my blender, it would make a mess, and I’d have to clean it up. Way to stressful for a quick lunch. Yet, wait, I had my strawberry rhubarb sauce, I had yogurt, and I had some almonds to toss in. All went into a bowl (paper), and I enjoyed a never to be equaled, never to be repeated gourmet treat. It rivaled a strawberry sundae — delicious.
To my surprise, when I checked the origin of “to concoct,” it meant to digest, or to boil together. Aha! I guess I’ve got that one conquered. I’ll be known as the master concocter, par excellence.
