I grew up in a home where common sense did not reside. It is still a mystery to me that my parents -- a professional violinist and tone-deaf research scientist -- raised four children. Sheet music, orchestral scores, and music manuscripts littered our living room. My father would conduct experiments throughout the house, including an ill-fated backyard skating rink in the dead of a Chicago winter. Dinner? I can remember my mother looking up from her music as if emerging from another world, it never occurring to her we would need to eat today.
If it weren’t for my widowed grandmother who lived with us for several years, we would not have eaten at all. She cleaned, she sewed, and she made food from what was already in the cupboard as she did not drive. Mom would go to the grocery with nary a meal in mind, choosing instead what was marked down from produce to outdated cans which she usually bought by the case. Bread, she purchased, from an outlet store, most often white sandwich loaves that could be smashed flat with very little effort. Dolly Madison snack cakes were purchased in large cartons and stored in the freezer. When I think of the preservatives that I have consumed in my lifetime, I figure I will live a very long time.
Our house was not known for its culinary expertise. Everything came from cans, including our best friend Chef Boyardee and his associate Franco American. My grandmother could make about anything if you gave her condensed Cream of Mushroom soup and a can of tuna.
When Bill and I married, I discovered the wonders of Bisquick. Our first week of married life, I learned to make Bisquick biscuits -- “from scratch” -- a far cry, I thought, from a can of refrigerator biscuits that you hit on the side of the countertop to open. I advanced to making “real” spaghetti by actually boiling noodles and heating up a jar of Ragu. When we visited Bill’s parents the first time, his mother – a cook extraordinaire – prepared macaroni and cheese for a quick supper one night. I was 27 years old and had never had macaroni that didn’t come out of a blue Kraft box.
Needless to say, learning to cook for me was on the magnitude of learning to bungee-jump. Under my husband’s tutelage and my mother-in-law’s recipe box, I learned to feed our family, realizing first that cookbooks were not written in obscure ancient languages. Through many mistakes, I also realized that recipes were meant to be followed. Some dishes became favorites, and others, well, at least I didn’t burn down the kitchen.
So, considering my background, today I will meet Julia Child face to face, working my way through a recipe for an entree I cannot even pronounce. Step by step. As one of my daughters would say, “Just follow the instructions, Mom.”
Taking up this culinary challenge is one of the things, oddly enough, that I have learned from running. As I have gotten older, I realize that my elaborate justifications-- to not do so many things –- are only really feeble excuses on life-support. For years, I would see runners and say, “I could never do that.” Early one morning, I started a slow jog a half block at a time when no one could see me. And I didn’t die. That was twelve years and six marathons ago.
Today – well, Julia, let’s give this a try.
No comments:
Post a Comment