The summer that I was 17, my then-boyfriend (Jeff) and I had a very important conversation.
Jeff- “Ellen, um, do you think we could ever eat something besides plain pasta for dinner?”
Me- “Huh? Like what?”
Jeff- “We could try putting sauce on the pasta.”
This conversation actually happened. Given I was living at home, I wasn’t the one cooking. But as you can probably deduce from the conversation, my family didn’t cook. Well, we did, but we only cooked on Sundays. So the rest of the week we ate things like plain pasta, or what I used to refer as a “smorgasbord’ – a plate with coldcuts, cheese, pickles, and bread. We also had some interesting phases to fit my brother’s dietary preferences- like strawberries at every meal. Anyway, the idea is, cooking wasn’t a regular thing in my house, and when there was cooking, I wasn’t anywhere near it.*
Then, I went to Olin, where we never had to cook, because we were required to be on the meal plan. When I interned, my main food came from “I’ll buy some hummus and carrots.” Nikki and I actually had an argument when she moved in, that went about like this.
Nikki – “We need to go to the grocery store.”
Me – “No we don’t.”
Nikki- “Have you looked in the fridge?”
Me – “We still have hummus, right?”
Nikki – “We have hummus, carrots, Coors light, and bad wine.”
Me- “See! We have hummus!”
Nikki- “Shut up, put your shoes on, we’re going to the store.”
This is all just background to demonstrate that I thought making plain pasta and buying hummus to dip carrots in, counted as cooking.
Then, I learned how to cook. I learned by mistake. It turns out, Tom likes to cook. So, after work he’d frequently suggest that we’d cook. I’d acquiesce, and my main contribution was standing in the cooking drinking wine. Of course, I’d get bored, and need a job. I’d need an active job so I wouldn’t wander off, so I started out with chopping vegetables.
After a few weeks of just chopping vegetables, I got impatient. So then I learned how to sauté the vegetables.
After that, I learned how to cook the meat (alongside the vegetables) and eventually combine then.
Having perfected about two skills, I realized that most of (simple) cooking involves 1) chopping things and 2) sautéing things and a very simple 3) putting things in the oven. If you can do those three things halfway decently, you can make:
- Eggs, or to be fancy, frittata
- Bacon
- Grilled cheese sandwiches
- Grilled cheese and bacon, tomato, or apple (or combo!) sandwiches
- Any kind of sandwich, really
- Tacos
- Burritos
- Lasagna
- Meatloaf
- Chicken pot pie
- Sweet potatoes
- Mashed potatoes
- Really any potatoes
- Stir fry
- Lemon chicken
And it goes on.
So, you too can probably cook. Start out really simple. Cut things up. Cut up vegetables for dip at first. Or cut up vegetables and ask someone else to cook them for you. Then work up to cooking them. And then you’ll probably be able to make most things.
You can cook, I promise.
*I also managed to ruin multiple cakes, waffles, etc. by not greasing pans. So cooking and baking were –both beyond me for quite a while.