"What's for dinner, Mom?" Let's face it, I am a pretty bad cook. My family is well aware of this fact, as are all of my friends. There is not one aspect of the process that I enjoy. First of all, I'm not known for planning ahead, which is integral to success in cooking. Most of my friends are great cooks and they plan their meals ahead, sometimes days in advance. I guarantee that if I call one of them around 4:00 p.m. on any given day they will be starting to cook dinner. They know you can't start most recipes at 5:25 when your family will be hungry by 6:00.
Another hurdle, grocery shopping, is something best avoided until almost everything is gone, including two of the most important food groups, peanut butter and ketchup.
Once I have some ingredients to work with, I only have 3 or 4 "go to" meals. These include spaghetti, "Old El Paso Gorditas", chili, steaks on the grill (no matter what the thermometer says) and the recently added chicken parmesan.
The funny thing is, when I begin cooking, the thought occurs to me that "this isn't so bad after all". However, you can't rest on the laurels of a single meal. This cooking thing has to happen every day! As for my expertise in the kitchen, I suffer from extreme anxiety. My sons really like the new chicken parmesan recipe, but browning the breaded chicken is always a crap shoot. Will it burn this time, or worse, will I not cook it long enough and thus poison my whole family?
The endearing thing is that my sons continue to give me the benefit of the doubt by asking "what's for dinner, Mom?", perhaps hoping that the answer will be chicken parmesan!
Copyright 2011 K.K.R.
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