Cooking Up Steam

Describe your cooking skills as a young person.  How did you learn to cook?

Thanks to the journal jar for this bubbling subject.

Seems to me I've blogged about this before already.  I'll have to get back to you on that.

I learned to cook mostly from my mother, who included me and allowed me to help her while she was cooking.  I would chop the vegetables, measure out spices, stir the sauces... just do the stuff that you have to do to cook, but just not be responsible for it all.  It's empowering to pitch in and help and end up earning some credit for a meal because you helped.  It's another thing to be the one in charge of the cooking.

A quick search of the blog provided this previous visit to the journal jar-- check it out here.  It reminds me of another aspect of cooking that I learned, but this time from my dad.  He taught me the art of BBQ.  And what an art that is.

But the real "formative" training in cooking was received in the 3rd grade, when our babysitter Sally Singleton came to the classroom and took a group of kids to the school cafeteria to cook a recipe.  Each week she took a group of kids and taught them a recipe, and then we eventually all made cookbooks for our mothers for Mother's Day with all of the recipes.  I bet my mom still has that recipe book somewhere, all covered in grease splatters from my repeated renditions of Waikiki Meatballs and Stir-Fry Vegetables.

I think I really learned to cook when I went away to college and started living on my own.  That's when I had to get creative and learn to cook with what I had.  Some of the stuff I did was delicious, other stuff not so good.  But I experimented and started to put meals together and balance tastes with textures.  And I started pairing things with wines, too.  All this made for more interesting dishes.  I once made dinner for my parents when I was home from college.  My friend Pete had helped me pick out some wine to cook with and serve with the meal.  The meal kind of amounted to a chicken stir-fry with vegetables-- snowpeas, to be sure-- but it fit the bill.  It was a success, and my mom remarked, and I remember, that I had "become quite the cook."  She may be a bit biased.

Journal Jar Re-entry

What say we visit the Journal Jar again?  Oh Boy!  So exciting!

Describe your cooking skills and your favorite thing to cook.

Oooo.  Okay.

I love to grill.  We don't do it very often anymore because we don't really have a good grill.  Just the one we used at tailgates mostly, and we just don't break it out.  It awaits our gumption in the back yard.

I love barbequed steak.  I love barbequed chicken.  I love grilled corn on the cob.  I love grilled tomatoes.

But I also love to stir fry.  Stir fried vegetables rock.

Truth be told, though, I don't cook anymore.  My wife does.  Not because I can't but because she's better.  She can put a meal together like nobody's business.  I can do some of this and a little of that but I don't rock like she does at the total package.  So I stay out of the way most of the time and let her create the miracle goods.  And she does.

I used to like making soup or stew.  Split pea with ham, or veggie beef stew.  Chili.  Lentil soup with linguicia and spaghetti noodles, like my grandmother made.

So I'm a good cook, but I just am living in the shadow of my wonderful wife.  She would probably prefer that I cook, but she's better at it than I am.

It used to be fun, grilling with a beer in hand, charring meat and savoring the sizzle.  But we go out to eat mostly now.  Way too much.  Maybe that will change.

One of my special recipes, culled from my 3rd grade cook book, is Waikiki Meatballs.  Fun to make, cuz you get to squish the meat mixture between your fingers to blend your meatballs.  A real crowd pleaser, and kids have fun making them.

Another specialty is my stuffed artichokes, made in the pressure cooker.  Delectable.  Great with BBQ chicken.

Why am I getting hungry?  I just ate.  Salami and Boursin cheese with french bread.  Yummy.  Washed down with a beer.  But I love to talk food.  Our families do too.

Another use for the pressure cooker-- burritos.  Pressure cook some stew meat for about a half an hour, add spices and refried beans and you've got the base for some killer burritos.  Slice and dice tomatoes, onions, olives, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, salsa-- that's a big ass yum goin on.

So.  I can cook.  I can cook well.  But my wife cooks best.  Final answer.

Our Thanksgiving dinners are out of this world.