| Victim of culinary ineptness vows kitchen-mastery (4/03) | | Print | |
| Written by Yvonne Wong | |
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In seventh grade, I was standing at my kitchen station with my cooking mates, ready to begin preparing the dish of the week: golden shrimp shells. Ecstatic that I was finally head chef of my home economics group, I took out the pan from the cabinet, flicked on the stove switch and began sautéing the garlic and onion. I could do this. The flame wavered. Tina added the chopped onion. The heat rose and the oil sizzled loudly. "Are you sure the heat isn't too high?" Tina asked. My other cooking mates, Mark and Grant, appeared equally concerned. "It's fine," I responded. "I know what I'm doing." Within two minutes, the onion-and-garlic mix had blackened to a fine crisp, and Tina was coughing from the gray whirlwind of smoke dancing around her. Uh-oh. Ms. Thomson said that any group that burned its onion sauté would automatically get a C. Mark quickly took the pan off the stove and dumped the burnt contents out the window into the courtyard two stories down. He sent Tina back to the ingredients cart to fetch a new tray of oil, onion and garlic, and declared that he would sauté the ingredients this time. Ms. Thomson gave each of us an "A-minus," the minus for leaving wet towels by the sink. She never discovered my scorched sauté. I'm sorry, Ms. Thomson. It's pathetic, but true: I can't cook. I can't boil an egg correctly; sometimes the soft yellow yolk spills out. Although I have a disability in the kitchen, particularly with the stovetop, I always tell Mom that I can bake a scrumptious batch of cookies and even whip up a delectable banana-cream pie. Mom's response? "You can't bake cookies for dinner for your future husband." When did my cooking ineptness become equated to my future husband's hunger pangs? I refuse to be Suzy Homemaker, a stay-at-home mom who serves prompt meals to her husband, the breadwinner who ventures out into the world of career and ambition. I don't want to be ignorant to the art of cooking, but when I finally do decide to sharpen my culinary lack of skills, I will gladly don an apron — not to please some indolent husband who expects his wife to cook, but to become more independent and to improve my self-sufficiency. While I will not always be living with my mother who cooks everything and anything, I don't want to eat dry Ramen noodles for four straight nights in college to sate my hunger. Self-sufficiency is more than waiting for the countdown of the numbers on the microwave screen. That's little better than being a cave woman. Sure, I could live on Campbell's soup, bread and water with the assistance of Mr. Microwave, but I think my taste buds would numb in a month. Learning to cook will not only make me more independent, but will also increase my awareness of another important sphere of wisdom: the food pyramid. Few people think about the number of servings of fruit and vegetables they eat a day; everyone seems to overlook the importance of this obelisk of good-for-me edibles and choose-less-often yummies. No matter how much money I make when I get older, wining and dining out every other day is not a smart or healthy choice. I would become so absorbed in nibbling on the tantalizing appetizers at Lulu's and devouring the steaming entrees at Thai Basil that keeping track of the amount of protein or veggies will be impossible. I'll probably also have at least five times the amount of sodium proper for consumption in one day, since restaurants in general are notorious for using more sodium than necessary. I don't want to experience hypertension anytime soon. So this summer, I will try (notice I said try) to learn to cook. But if I end up not being able to pull through the tedious chopping, grating, stir-frying, boiling, and the gosh-awful sautéing, then I'll just have to grab the cookie sheets and the banana-cream pie recipe and serve dessert. Who ever said that dessert in place of dinner was bad? |
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to listen.
