My friend Pam, like most of my buddies, is wondering what has happened to her cooking ability. She used to fix big gourmet meals and now she thinks she’s doing good to heat up a frozen lasagna dinner. Cheese sandwiches and tomato soup are frequent entrees on her dinner menu. For special occasions she toasts the sandwiches. And puts a dollop of sour cream in the soup. And uses real dishes instead of
Maybe, she wonders, it’s because her household has dwindled from a husband and three kids to a husband. Cooking for five takes a lot more responsibility and planning than cooking for two. Plus, her man will eat anything short of roadkill with hair still on and mold.
I know how she feels. You know how agoraphobics start out being able to trod the world and slowly evolve to where they’re living in a closet? That’s how my cooking has become. I have cooking agoraphobia. I’m down to three meals: meatloaf, chili, and macaroni and cheese dotted with kielbasa. I don’t count soup and sandwiches as genuine dinner fare.
I used to use recipes and cookbooks. Now, if it doesn’t come out of my head it doesn’t get made. And my head just doesn’t hold that much anymore. Except for meatloaf, chili, and macaroni and cheese with kielbasa.
My husband deserves better than he’s getting from my kitchen. But, like Pam’s guy, he never complains. Bless his heart. He prays equally thankful prayers over everything. Maybe because some nights I don’t cook at all, which leaves him grateful when anything’s going on in the kitchen.
Clearly, something has to be done. Maybe there’s a support group for apathetic meal getters. Someplace to go where they’ll cheer you on and motivate you to use your creativity and skills to prepare truly wonderful dishes. Where they revive your dead interest in cookbooks and recipes.
“Hello. My name is Jan. I have a problem with cooking. I seem to have somehow lost my ability and desire.”
“Welcome, Jan. Let’s give Jan a round of applause for having the courage to face her cooking problem and the wisdom to seek a solution.”
We’ll hear motivational speeches and trade meatloaf recipes and have potluck dinners where everyone brings potato chips and store-bought potato salad and Kleenexes are passed around to dry the tears of guilt. What losers. We can’t even scrape together a dish for a potluck.
Maybe there’s a pill to perk up the enthusiasm in the kitchen. Something like Viagra for cooks. One little pill and before you know it you’re wearing an apron and are sifting and measuring and butchering the moose that stupidly wandered through the back yard.
By the time he comes home you have the freezer filled with roasts and hamburger, four-course meals are prepared for the next 40 days and there are enough cinnamon rolls and bread to open a bakery. Plus, you’ve put a beehive next to the garage, harvested the neighbor’s garden, canned 60 quarts of peaches and pears and made 20 gallons of blueberry syrup. And gotten all the way to chapter three in the cookbook you’re writing.
I vow I’m going to change. I’m going to go back in time and become the wife I was when we were newlyweds. Well, except this time when he comes through the door I’ll have clothes on under the apron. I’ll pore over Betty Crocker cookbooks and thumb through Mom’s recipes and when he comes home from work I’ll lovingly spread some mustard and ketchup on a bun and add a hot dog. Because that’s about all I cooked when we were newlyweds.
That won’t work. I need to move up a few decades to the time when I actually could put together a pretty good meal. Back when I could read a recipe and actually have all the ingredients on hand and not have to go to the store. Back when we used real napkins and silverware and sometimes even lit candles and ate on that thing…..what’s it called?…oh, yeah, a table! And when I succeed it’ll scare my husband to death. Because he’ll wonder what on earth I’m up to.
