I’ve said it before; I do not cook. I can’t, simple as that. Yes, I am a woman and thus able to multitask but for some reason this does not apply to me in the kitchen.
I am utterly confused with all the many ingredients spread on the counter waiting to be managed in one way or the other, and all those pots and pans and weird electric gadgets… There are just too many ingredients for a catastrophe.
I do try though, every now and then. I put all that time and effort into it; cutting, chopping, preparing and reading, reading and reading the recipe…
And then the food’s edible but not something I would serve even to a homeless cat. I can bare it but I really don’t want to put my friends or family into that situation where they need to lie through their teeth (literally because the uncooked pastry has glued their teeth together) and suffer through the whole plate of dry or soggy whatever out of which you can’t really distinguish any particular flavour, other than something that doesn’t resemble food.
Here are just a few examples of what goes on when I get into the kitchen:
I peel things to the wrong direction, as in I’m left-handed but I don’t think that should affect the direction to which one should peel an apple or a carrot.
You know you’re supposed to peel anything so that you move the knife to the opposite direction from your body, right? For some reason I have never been able to grasp this skill so I peel so that the knife comes towards me on every peel. Needless to say blood is spilled 90% of the time.
I’m not quite sure how spices work so I cover everything with cayenne pepper and/or chili. Thankfully I happen to LOVE chili and spicy food so it’s fine if I taste nothing but pain. But I do recognize the fact that one should not serve anything like that to other people. Unless one is from Asia.
Cutting anything means at least one finger bleeding and 20-40% of the product being found on the floor. Onion (especially onion!), apple, cucumber, potato, anything that needs cutting or chopping will be partly on the floor by the time I stop waving the enormous steak knife around.
Because I never cut any food-items with anything else but a huge steak knife (or chef’s knife as I think it is called in professional circles).
I don’t understand cooking times and since I don’t cook much I don’t know how much longer something takes to cook in my oven than it would take in the oven at my mum’s place. So, whatever I cook will be either under-cooked or over-cooked. Every time! There’s a potential health risk right there.
So, what am I left with really? If I can’t make the aforementioned things work how will I ever be able to make an edible meal that’s good enough for serving to other people? Answer; I just won’t.
How do I stay alive then? By shouting for mum in the kitchen to bring me some food. Or since I live alone I do it the 21st century way: by sending a message to a restaurant to let them know that sustenance is required in this and that address.
The only difference between this and shouting at parents in the kitchen is that I need to actually get off the sofa and open the door to accept the food when it is brought to me. Otherwise it’s completely the same thing.
OK, let us be completely honest; there are some things that I actually can cook, and quite well too, if I may say so myself. The pasta dish in the pictures was actually cooked by me and it even tasted good!
Things that I CAN do are: omelette, pancakes, apple pie and boiling pasta! In fact I would be fine with just that because that’ll get me through life and that’s enough. And food delivery, definitely food delivery! That’s where I get my greens.
Doesn’t sound healthy does it? I don’t think it’s that bad, after all what I order in isn’t burgers and pizzas all the time. Most of the time I order vegetarian food because I do recognize that I need to top up on the veggies every chance I get.
And since it’s summer I eat berries probably more than is recommended, but yeah… I can’t deny that home cooking is the best. Just not when I’ve cooked it.