I’m not the world’s best cook. In fact I don’t get a kick out of cooking like some people do. Maybe it’s because I generally don’t get excited about food. I just want enough to stay alive and I don’t really mind repeating the same menu over and over again for myself. I think of cooking more as a task than a hobby or something that makes me happy. Nonetheless I try to make my meals appealing for the members of my family and they generally like what I prepare from my limited repertoire. 

My mother started me on the road to cooking when I was rather young. She delighted in being a chef and wanted to pass down her skills to me. Her first steps were to have me watch her preparing different dishes and learn from what I observed. My Grandma Minnie tried the same method with me but sadly my attention span often drifted off into other interests so I really did not enhance my cooking skills by standing behind the two master chefs of my family. 

I tend to be a kinesthetic person who learns by doing, so eventually my mother shifted gears and challenged me to prepare a meal for the family. Since I was not yet in my teens my choice of entree and side dishes reflected the kind of things that I liked. I decided to fry up some meat patties and serve them with mashed potatoes and green beans. None of it seemed to be that difficult but no matter how hard I tried to make my potatoes smooth the lumps just kept showing up. I wondered if I was ever going to get my offering on the table before it was time to go to bed so I eventually just served everything as is. 

The meat was acceptable and there is not much that can go wrong with opening a can of green beans, heating them and then announcing that they are ready for consumption. The mashed potatoes looked good with their butter and cream but I suppose that I had not cooked them long enough because when my family tried them they crunched as they chewed. Of course brothers being brothers had to find me guilty of giving them the worst meal they had ever eaten. It was bound to happen given my mother’s culinary acumen. By comparison my efforts were a hack job that disgusted even me. 

I got better over time. Having recipes and following them helped. My first kudos came from the cookies that I baked. Eventually I became quite adept at making a pot of beans from dried legumes. Over time my family members honored me with the title of the Bean Queen. The step from beans to soup was not all that drastic. I began to develop an uncanny ability to know how to weave ingredients together in a tasty stew. To my great joy there were no complaints about my vegetable, chicken or potato soups. 

I have the most fun cooking when I am doing it with someone else. The solitude of cooking alone feels like an onerous task but putting together a feast with someone else is fun. I like to play music and banter with whomever my cooking partner happens to be. Making it a social thing eases the feeling that cooking is a drudge.

My husband and I make seafood gumbo every Christmas and I always look forward to the experience. My mother-in-law expanded my soup making abilities by showing me how to make yellow split pea soup for New Year’s Day. I haven’t missed a year of doing that ever since she turned the job over to me. 

I make a mean arroz con pollo and the ease of creating a pot roast is totally appealing to me. I know it may sound a bit too easy but my fried eggs are perfection. I make a tasty grilled cheese as well. In fact somehow cheesy things are my favorites. My macaroni and cheese is really good. I learned how to make that from my friend, Cappy. I never cooked salmon until my youngest daughter shared her recipe with me. Now I rotate salmon into my menu on a regular basis and I have many renditions all of which are quite delicious

I love one dish or one pan meals. Sometimes I think my real lack of enthusiasm for cooking has mostly to do with the number of bowls and utensils and pots that I have to clean after cooking. When I can create a feast on cookie pan covered in aluminum foil and cook all of the courses in the oven while I read or do the other things that I most enjoy I feel victorious. 

I’ve got  couple of slow cooker delights but I usually find that everything starts to taste the same if I use that mode of cooking too often. It mainly comes in handy when I have scheduled a very long day of appointments and tasks that leave me scrambling at the last minute to come up with something for dinner.

For a time I used a service that gave me the ingredients and instructions for many of my meals. Over time the entrees became more and more expensive and recipes were repeated again and again. I realized that I might duplicate the best menus without paying an arm and a leg for a single meal. 

I really do wish that I had developed the joy of cooking like my mother and grandmother and daughter and so many of my friends managed to learn. I can’t exactly explain why food just does not matter that much to me. I cook for others and honestly sometimes the task just becomes tedious as I think about escaping the house for an adventurous walk or continuing to read the book that I don’t want to put down. I guess that I never got the gene for cooking that some people have. I’d be satisfied to eat the beans and weenies that were a staple for one of my aunts with whom I seem to be the most alike. I cook to survive but do my best to understand that the people at my table want a bit more, so I try a little of this and a little of that now and again and seem to please everyone’s taste buds most of the time. Speaking of that, I must now go to the kitchen and come up with some ideas for grub for tonight.