Ever since I can remember, my mom has been cooking up delicious Chinese food for our family. The smell of soy sauce, ginger, and spices filled the air each and every night in our house. As I got older, I realized that I definitely did NOT inherit my mom’s culinary expertise. Living on my own in college, I relied on ramen, sandwiches, and take-out. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t for lack of trying. I’ve ventured into the kitchen a few times, and someday… someday… I will succeed. But you don’t really want to hear my stories about success. No, you’re here for the tales of concoctionary (I just made up a word - yay!) woe.
HA CAN’T COOK
This above photo is of me doing a cooking show. Yes, you read it correctly. The self-proclaimed “Kitchen Disaster” showed a room full of people how to make “ro mee fan”, a Chinese rice dish. Trust me, it wasn’t my idea. Organizers of the Asian Celebration in Eugene, Oregon asked a few local television personalities of Asian decent (all three of us) to demonstrate how to make their favorite entree. I was just glad they didn’t call it “The Oriental Celebration”. So, I called my mom and asked if she knew an easy recipe that I couldn’t mess up. Of course, she said “I don’t know, I just add stuff - I don’t really measure things out”. Yeah, easy for you to say if you just add “stuff” and it miraculously tastes like heaven. For me, I need to follow recipes to the tee because rarely do my substitutions actually result in something edible.
So then I thought of my boyfriend at the time and the super delicious sticky rice that he made for me quite often. Ben said it was his mom who taught him how to make it. Then I called her and asked for her secret recipe. Ben’s mom actually told me how to make it and I copied it down copiously. Ben also gave me a crash course in how to make it. But learning how to make it and teaching it to others are two entirely different creatures.
I was hoping that there would be three or four people who read the program and wanted to attend my class (actually, I thought that I would have a small portable stove in the middle of a busy fairground so that I would blend in to all the other crafts and things going on). I certainly didn’t want the dozens and dozens of people there who actually showed up - to a big classroom nonetheless. I was freaking out because there was a camera on me, a wok cam filming the “action” from above, two monitors for the audience to look at, and a mic clipped to my red blazer broadcasting every uncertain word from my lips. For a culinary aficionado, this would have been paradise - to have your own cooking class for showcasing your talent. As for me, I was just hoping to get out alive.
I started off with a brief introduction and the crowd was quite friendly and responsive. I guess they really thought they were going to learn something. Then, as I explained that this would only be the second time that I was going to make the “ro mee fan”, the room fell silent. I think I would have been happy to hear crickets, but they knew better than to show up to my cooking demonstration. So, no crickets, no pin drops, no nuthin’. Just me… and a wok.
I decided that humor would be my best weapon against these judgmental, I-can-cook-and-you-can’t eyes (self-deprecating humor works well when it’s true). I simply told them that if I could make this rice dish, so could they. I also ended up burning the rice so it became a course in what not to do. The first few jokes garnered a laugh or two, but God must have been smiling down on me that day because by the end of my 30 minute sweat fest, everyone was laughing, enjoying themselves, and asking questions. I was so relieved that I found a way to talk myself out of a potentially image-tarnishing situation. Whoa. So, that was the last time I tried to teach anyone how to cook something. Sorry SuperGirl, you’ll be learning the fine art of baking, broiling, and blanching from your Daddums or Grandmas or Auntie Sarah (or Uncle Jason and Aunt Michelle).
I was reminded of that story tonight because I just bought a slow cooker cookbook. I decided to make pot roast with mushroom sauce and vegetables for dinner tomorrow. As I was preparing the ingredients, I decided to re-read the instructions. Good thing I did because I almost chopped up the pot roast into squares. It didn’t occur to me that pot roast should be cooked intact inside the crock pot. Who knew? Just to be certain, I looked up “pot roast” on dictionary.com. It says “a dish of meat, usually brisket of beef or chuck roast, stewed in one piece in a covered pot and served in its own gravy”. You learn something new every day.
Since I’m airing out all my embarrassing cooking stories, I probably shouldn’t leave this one out. Only recently have I allowed Ben to tell this story. Here goes. About two years ago, I went to Albertson’s to buy some chicken. The whole chicken was ridiculously cheap… something like .57 cents a pound. The same chicken sold all cut up was $1.99 a pound. Of course, I was going to buy the cheaper bird. But just before I left the butcher’s area, I asked a nice young guy if he could cut up my chicken for me. “Sure” he says, “how do you want me to cut it?” What? How does he want me to cut it? I hadn’t thought of that. “Ummm…. into little squares?,” I reluctantly offer as I hold up my hands to show a square the size of a mini-Rubik’s cube. That’s when the über nice guy said “Yeahhhhh… okay… how about if I cut some drumsticks, thighs, and breast pieces for you?” I was relieved that he offered another suggestion so I said “Sounds good to me”. I was happy the nice man gave me cut-up chicken for the price of uncut. Unfortunately, I later realized the retard-o factor of that conversation when I told Ben what happened at the grocery store. Ben was in disbelief. “You said what?… squares?”. He laughed so hard… then he laughed some more. D’oh. This is why I think eating out is so alluring.
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