Learning To Cook…
When I first moved out of my parents’ house, I was 18 or 19 and I didn’t really know how to cook. I learned how to cook spaghetti with tomato meat sauce and broccoli with hollandaise sauce. I have to say it was pretty delicious. Two or three times a week I cooked this meal and we would eat out the rest of the time.
Occasionally I would sample something new. I remember one time I tried to make okra stew. I had never had okra before and kind of liked it so thought I would try to replicate the dish. What an epic failure. I bought one or maybe even two cans of okra and put the whole thing in the stew. Every bite was full of okra. Yuk. I felt kind of bad though because Tom ate every bite and even pretended to like it.
Over time I added to my repertoire of dishes. Tom’s mom was known as a fantastic cook and taught me a few things. Lasagna was probably the favorite dish I learned from her. As a matter of fact, I would make a big dish of lasagna and Tom would take leftovers to work to share. More than once I was offered $ to make food for some of his single coworkers.
Over the years we hosted over 25 international students, and they would often bring their friends over for dinner. We had a meal routine which included cereal for breakfast, lunch on their own, usually at school, and I would make a buffet for dinner. Often, I wouldn’t know how many people would show up so I learned to just add another dish for each person I saw walk through the door. During this time, I learned how to make quite a few Asian dishes, sometimes learned from my students. One of the dishes I made was super easy but always a hit. I would stir fry hamburger and throw in several packages of top ramen along with some spices, especially red pepper flakes. The South Korean men especially loved this dish. They were required to serve 26 months in the military and I always thought they loved my cooking so much because they were comparing it to what they ate in the military.
I adopted a house rule with the kids for dinner. They often would look at some new food and decide they didn’t like it. Now I can relate to this because I’m the same way. Pickled beets for example. I’ve never had them but can just look at them to know I don’t like them. Anyway the house rule was that everyone had to try at least one bite of everything served as a “ thank you bite to the cook.” This wasn’t a popular rule, but I wanted the kids to allow themselves the opportunity to grow with their food selections.
