I\u2019m frequently asked how I got into cooking. Now, I suspect that what follows is something of an apocryphal tale: I certainly can\u2019t vouch for its veracity since it took place, in theory at least, when I was five tender years of age and I have absolutely no recollection of the event. But this, according to the saga circulated by my beleaguered mother, was my initial foray into the culinary arts.<\/p>\n
As she would tell the story to her cronies, one wintry Sunday morning \u2013 I\u2019m using the word \u201cmorning\u201d loosely since I\u2019m told it was 5:00 \u2013 I awoke hungry. Realizing that my parents were still very much asleep and recalling their disagreeable response to being roused in the darkness, I decided to address the absence of a ready breakfast by taking measures into my own little hands.<\/p>\n
I had watched my mother prepare our morning repast on many occasions. She would fill a large pot with water, pour in some stuff from a red and blue cardboard canister graced with a quaint rendering of an avuncular looking fellow sporting a black hat (the container would later be reincarnated as an annoying percussion instrument), and stir monotonously and apathetically with an oversized wooden spoon. Sure enough, some minutes later, a bowl of steaming, stick-to-your-ribs mush would appear on our war-torn kitchen table.<\/p>\n
Seemed simple enough.<\/p>\n
I managed to clamber up a chair to fetch the oatmeal and the spoon, but the pot proved too heavy to wrangle. So, demonstrating the improvisational skills that would later prove invaluable to this budding jazz pianist, I made straight for the bathroom. Leaning over the edge of the bathtub, I turned on the water \u2013 full blast \u2013 and proceeded to dump the entire contents of the box into the roiling cascade. Noisily wielding the spoon, I stirred with such vigor and reckless abandon that it awakened my mother who came charging into the bathroom to see what all the commotion was about.<\/p>\n
What happened next? I wish I could tell you. By that juncture in my mother\u2019s narrative, she and her captive audience had usually broken into paroxysms of laughter. (And I suspect the unpleasant denouement would best be left to the imagination anyway.)<\/p>\n
But the reason I told you that story was so that I could tell you this one: I am willing to wager almost anything that even then, my foamy concoction would have tasted better than my mother\u2019s most determined attempts at cooking. And that directly addresses the gist of the initial question \u2013 why did I get into cooking?<\/p>\n
Simply put, childhood trauma. My mother\u2019s cooking could best be described as child abuse. Recognizing her ineptness in the kitchen and having no desire to rectify the situation, she decided that Swanson\u2019s TV Dinners\u2122 and Morton\u2019s Chicken Pot Pies\u00ae<\/sup> would serve as our quotidian fare. Oh, and the occasional bowl of canned mixed vegetables. Did you ever hear of Veg-All? I have a hazy (and most likely inaccurate) memory that there was a prototypical version that, for some unknown reason, had little wax paper disks between each of the vegetable types: beige corn, gray string beans, grayer peas\u2026you get the idea. There may have been diced potatoes in there too. Or something that was sort of a lighter shade of gray than the rest. And mushier. After a while they eliminated the paper, probably having discovered that their customers were ingesting it, preferring it to the \u201cvegetables\u201d, I imagine. Or perhaps being unable to distinguish between them.<\/p>\n Any poison she could find at the grocery store was grist for our table. I\u2019ll never forget the fateful day when she returned from the supermarket brandishing a box of Butter Buds, a sort of faded yellow, gritty, granular substance that looked exactly like something from my Gilbert chemistry set. (I had the F model \u2013 the one with the Bunsen burner. I learned how to make hydrogen sulfide gas, rotten egg smell that overwhelmingly stunk up the kitchen. It beat the stench of her cooking hands down, though. But I digress.) \u201cWe\u2019ll use this instead of real butter,\u201d she clucked, offering neither an explanation nor an apology. That was the day I learned what industrial waste tastes like. It\u2019s a wonder I don\u2019t glow in the dark after consuming all those chemicals.<\/p>\n So there you have it \u2013 the when and the why. And QED that in this case, revenge is a dish best served delicious!<\/p>\n I\u2019m frequently asked how I got into cooking. Read my story and you\u2019ll learn all the deep, dark, behind-the-scenes details! Continue reading
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