I still remember my first apron. With its blue and white colors and Mickey Mouse all over it, I proudly wore that apron imagining one day the bakery I would open. From a young age, I loved baking. My Grandma, or "Grammy" as she is affectionally known, taught me everything she knew. I have fond early memories of spending hours in the kitchen making pie dough, cookies, and cakes. I wanted to be a bakery when I grew up. I enjoyed the precious time and effort it took to craft the perfect dessert. It became a way to get lost in my work and enjoy a hobby. As I got older, school and extracurricular activities began to take the place of some of those baking hours, but on my time off or holidays I still enjoy whipping up a batch of cookies.
While baking desserts became a hobby anything that involved "real food" was a task I chose to avoid. My years away at Jessup helped significantly with this. My cooking skills consisted of frying an egg and boiling pasta. When I had nothing edible in my fridge, the Cafe was just a two-minute walk. I did not feel I had time to cook between classes and working. Cooking became a challenge I chose to avoid because it really wasn't a necessity.
However Jessup didn't last forever and postgrad life quickly crept in and with that I met my husband. As we started dating and spending more and more time together, a problem (at least in my mind) arose: we always needed to seem to eat. Or really HE needed to always eat - if you didn't know this about guys, they eat all the time, and they eat a lot. Neither one of us really likes to eat out so we had to solve this problem by cooking at home.
I told my husband on one of our first dates, "I don't cook" and made a point to quickly inform him that if he was looking for a "domestic housewife" he better move on. Luckily that didn't scare him away, and he informed me he cooked and enjoyed it.
Our days of cooking began. My husband is a great cook. His favorite food group is meat so my taste for meat grew. However we disagree on one category of food groups: vegetables.
Which led to my own cooking adventure. I call it an adventure to make it more exciting than it really is. I found if you give fun things it improves my motivation to do it. I was determined to find a recipe that I could use and liked using. I also don't like to try the same recipe twice so pinterest became my best friend. When I first started this journey of learning how to cook there where several incidents such as burned toast with flames and burned rice in the rice cooker, which has a horrid smell. But my failures led me to keep on trying. I was pretty determined to learn how to cook. Soon, after much resistance I began to take the advice of my husband: put more oil in, put the lid on, and turn down the heat. My cooking improved with his advice and my enjoyment of cooking increased!
Three Things to Keep me Cooking:
I tend to get bored with something after I figure it out, but one thing I love about cooking is its always different. I increase my appetite for adventure by trying new recipes. Pinterest is my go to. However have you ever had a hard time actually trying to get to the recipe? Between all the ads and pictures it’s hard to disguish what you are suppose to do. My favorite tool is called RecipeBot.net. RecipeBot is a tool created by Brandon Foster. You go to the website, put in the link to your new favorite recipe and poof! All the images and ads are gone and all that is left is your recipe. Give it a shot for your next cooking adventure. It is a must for cooking.
My other handy dandy tool is my collection of aprons. Growing up I never baked without an apron and now the same goes for cooking. I rotate through my collection. I feel with anything in life; if you are going to do something you might as well look fabulous while doing it. Aprons make you feel like a real chef and add to the excitement of cuisine.
A benefit of learning how to cook is being able to have people in our home. I found I have a knack for making things feel homey and I love hospitality (despite my push for not being that domestic housewife....). I love making an actual edible meal and having others enjoys it. It makes the hours worth it, and it also is a great time to connect with people, enjoy their company, and spend time with them.
