What's Cooking?

You can’t tell by looking at me, but one of my grandfathers was a French chef, born in Alsace and trained in Paris to work for the likes of Lady Astor and the Colgate family. He could flip pancakes one-handed (always a hit with the grandchildren), retained a French accent despite 75 years in the U.S., and was in charge of Thanksgiving dinner every year until he died. We kids believed that he would eat absolutely anything:

“That’s rat shit, Pop.”

“Tastes good on a long roll!”

He made really good pasta e fagioli, which we all called “pasta fazool.” The secret of his turkey gravy went with him to his grave. Regrettably for my dinner guests, he never taught me a thing.

A lot of people say they can’t – or don’t – cook. In my experience, few of them actually mean it. I, on the other hand, attended a work-sponsored team building exercise disguised as a cooking class somewhere in my mid-30s, and it was the first time I ever sliced raw chicken. Probably the only time. I did fry hamburger meat once.

Let’s get specific: I can boil water and make pasta. In fact I always boil pasta before serving it and am quite proud of my perfect record, as according to family lore the same cannot be said of my entire clan. I can open cans of soup and heat the contents in a pot, though this sometimes gets messy. Getting out the lid constitutes a project, as does greasing the frying pan. I’ll put things in the oven if all I have to do is take them out of the freezer and put them on a tray. Given dried onion soup and some sour cream, I can make you a tasty dip. Plus I have an old family recipe for ham and cream cheese roll-ups. A friend christened them “ham jobs”. The secret ingredient is horseradish.

Let’s eat out, shall we?

Mostly I’m just lazy, and never learned to cook properly – I like to think of my life as a cautionary tale for today’s youth. But part of the problem is that the gadgets and such escape me. I'm not much good with a potato peeler, and have no use for a whisk. The blender seems all fun and frothy but when you stick your hand in there it bites. And occasionally, when left alone with pepperoni and a knife, I need stitches. I electrocuted myself using a butter knife to fetch an English muffin from the toaster when I was about 8. I wouldn’t do it again on purpose, but I have to confess I kind of liked the fuzzy feeling. These days I unplug the toaster as soon as I’ve finished with it – compulsively. After an ill-fated morning or two, I’ve ascertained that an unplugged toaster will fake out breakfast companions with dreams of toasted bagels.

It’s a wonder I still use a microwave, too, after the Tupperware Incident. In college I used to melt peanut butter on top of pasta. (Tsk. Don’t act surprised; I said I don’t cook.) So I put a Tupperware container of peanut butter in the microwave. On high. For a while.

I knew when I took it out that things had gone horribly wrong: the bowl was a bit warped and the peanuts were black. What I didn’t expect was the chemical miracle that occurs when hot peanut butter molecules bond with melted plastic. The resulting compound is part taffy, part crazy glue, and when I touched the bottom of the bowl it scorched my index finger. I jerked away my hand, plus a long tail of piping hot peanut-plastic and at least one blackened nut. I considered putting my burning finger in my mouth, but thought better of it. I looked wildly around the dorm room for a paper towel or water source. I’d nearly wiped my finger on my pants when I remembered I was wearing shorts. Alas. I was headed to the bathroom anyway, as both bowl and peanuts were still smoking ominously.

Also, for the record, it is possible (though neither easy nor fun) to remove the puddle of melted plastic formerly known as colander from the bottom of the oven. Now I check inside the oven before pre-heating. I also discouraged the cleaning service from storing further kitchenware in there – especially the melty kind.

Maybe raw food is the way to go; I can eat salads. I can even buy them in a bag to cut down on the opportunities to slice open a palm. I know: prepared foods contain chemicals and preservatives that aren’t good for me. On the other hand, they do me a solid by getting me out of the kitchen faster. It’s dangerous in there.

Fun fact:

Chinese food containers create fireworks in the microwave. They’re blue. Don’t try this at home.