Personal Research Essay

For my Creative Nonfiction class we were given the assignment to write a personal research essay. At first I had absolutely no idea what to write about, but this is something that has interested me for a while now.

             

             I can count the number of times I’ve been to church on one hand. My two most distinct memories of church are the time I was the only kid in Sunday School without a Bible, and the time I rushed out and puked on the lawn.

            Going to church has been very important to my past relatives over the years, but less so in my generation. My great-grandmother, or Nana as we called her, was very active in church and was in women’s groups for her whole life, and she passed this on to my Miemie. I’ve always thought of my Miemie as being religious, although not to the extreme, and I know that she’s always enjoyed going to church. This love didn’t transfer down to her children though as it had from her mother to her.

            Growing up, both of my parents were required to go to church every Sunday. My Miemie required my mom and her three siblings to go when they were very young but as they got a little older she began to give them a choice. They could either go to church, Sunday School, or the youth group. Apparently my mom chose the youth group, which happened to be the least religious of the three. When I asked her about it though, she said although she didn’t remember much, she did remember learning about the Bible.

            My mom stopped going altogether once she graduated high school and my dad stopped some time in his teens as well. Since then, they have been less times than I have. I suppose they stopped going because my grandparents could no longer force them too. I’ve always wondered why they didn’t at least give my brother and I the option to go though. I’m not angry or bitter about it, but I truly do wonder.

            The few times that I’ve been to church lately have been for Baptisms of my younger cousins. Before that, I would go with my Miemie when she babysat me as a small child. She’s always been very involved in church and would sometimes take me to youth groups during the summer. This only happened once or twice though, but I also remember her bringing me to Sunday School twice.

            I remember doing crafts with sayings such as “God’s Little Love Bugs” on them, as well as stickers of these little bugs. Even though I didn’t have my own Bible, I remember the feeling I had on the few times I went to Sunday School. I felt very special and like I was a better person than I had been before. I always loved going and wished that I had been able to go more often. I never expressed this desire to my parents or my Miemie though.

            I remember when my uncle (by marriage) gave me my first Bible when I was around eight years old. He was a member of the choir at church and always went with my Miemie, even when my aunt (his wife) stopped going. It was a children’s version and the front was decorated in rainbow colors. I remember trying to read it and not getting very far. I enjoyed the daily lessons in it though and always felt that I would be a better person if I just followed them.

            I’ve always wondered why my parents never gave me the option to go to church. It’s been very important to both sides of my family for many years. I recently found a black and white picture of two old nuns and later found out that one of them was my dad’s great aunt. It was very interesting to me and I began to wonder about her. I wondered what it must have been like to be a nun and leave your family behind for a life dedicated to God. I could never imagine doing that, but it was something that a relative of mine had done.

            I’ve always thought of my mom’s side of the family as being more religious though. Walking into my Miemie’s house, there are many signs of her religion. There are a few portraits of Jesus around the house as well as tiny crosses hung up here and there. Walking into my own house, there are no such things.

            At least that’s what I thought. As I began to think about it some more, I realized that there are actually several signs of religion in my house. Above our woodstove there’s a tin picture of The Last Supper that’s been on the wall for as long as I can remember. My mom even attached a small cross on it. On the adjacent wall is a rather large picture of a guardian angel guiding two children across the bridge. It stares me right in the face every time I sit down for dinner and it has since I was probably a toddler.

            Next to that is my mom’s doll hutch, which houses around twenty porcelain dolls. One of them is Jesus, dressed in robes, with two small children at his sides. All three of these things surround our dinner table and for some reason I completely forgot about them. How could I just forget about these things that are so prominently displayed in my own home? Maybe I’ve grown so accustomed to seeing them that they don’t stick out to me.

            Another way of thinking about it is that maybe this has been my parent’s way of giving me and my brother religion. These pictures and symbols have been there all along, and even though we’ve never talked about them, my parents put them there for a reason. Maybe they didn’t want to go to church, but hanging pictures was a way for them to still incorporate God into our home.

            As for other religious items, I recently found out that my family owns four bibles, which really shocked me. There is a big one we have, which is gold around the edges and has fancy pictures inside it, but it’s tucked away in my closet. Then there’s the child’s one that I own, as well as one that my Miemie gave me last year. It was my Nana’s and I could tell how special it was from the moment I saw my Miemie walking towards me with it. It has a cream-colored leather cover with Nana’s name inscribed on it, and the pages are gold around the edges. As for the fourth Bible, apparently my dad has one that he keeps in his bedside table, which completely threw me when I found out.

            My dad has never talked about religion and I wonder how long he’s had that Bible. I wonder where he got it as well. Was it given to him by a family member, or did he buy it? I’m not sure why I find it so strange that he has one. Talking to my brother, I found out that he was as shocked as I was. It’s hard to explain why it’s so weird, but it really is. I’ve never heard my dad talk about religion. At the same time though, maybe people would be surprised to find out that I keep my Nana’s Bible in my bedside table.

            As I write this essay, I’m beginning to wonder why this topic intrigues me so much. I suppose a person is expected to be curious about something that they don’t know much about. My interest in religion began sometime earlier this year and was sparked when a friend I met in class asked me to come to the Christian Impact group with her (now called Cru). I went and although the group was a little too intense for me, I became more interested in exploring what religion meant to me.

            After that, I began to read my Nana’s Bible and I was reminded of the feeling I got when I was younger and felt like I was a better person for reading it. I enjoy reading it, but am only halfway through Genesis because I find it confusing and hard to keep track of everyone. I wish I could get through it faster, but for now I’m just going at my own pace and working my way through it. I hope to read the whole thing one day.

            One of the best parts about reading it though, isn’t about feeling like a better person or learning more about God. As I’ve been flipping through the pages, I’ve noticed little stars here and there or circled passages that my Nana must have made. She died when I was only two and a half, so seeing the things that she marked as important makes me feel like I have some sort of connection to her. I’m grateful that the Bible is what brought me closer to her, considering that it was something that meant so much to her.

            As I’ve been exploring religion and writing this paper, I decided it would be important for me to actually go to church. I’d been wanting to go for a few months, but I haven’t had anyone to go with and have been too afraid to go alone. I thought I could do it, but since I knew nothing about church, I figured it would be best to go with someone who did. So, on the weekend after Thanksgiving I went with my Miemie to the First Baptist Church of Sanbornton in Sanbornton, NH.

            I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed it. The pastor was very welcoming and the sermon was interesting. The only parts that made me uncomfortable were the group praying and singing the hymns. It felt awkward for me, I guess because it’s not something I’m used to. I feel like I shouldn’t be praising God so openly until I can figure out how to do it on my own. It felt forced in church, but overall it was a good experience and I hope to go back soon.

            Looking to my future, I hope to continue reading the Bible and going to church when I can. One day I’d like to give my children these options as well since it was something that was never offered to me. As I was asking my mom about why she stopped going she said something that really struck me. “I guess I feel like I don’t have to go to church to talk to God,” she said to me. I was so surprised to hear this admission from my mom, especially considering that I can’t think of another time that I’ve heard her say God in a religious context. I was somewhat shocked to know that she actually spoke to God and for some reason, it made me feel ok to be exploring this topic. I always seek my parent’s approval, and for my mom to tell me that, it let me know that it’s ok to read the Bible and go to church, even if she doesn’t.

            I’m still wondering why I have this big curiosity about God, but maybe it’s not important that I know the answer. Maybe it’s just important that I care about something and am developing a new interest. I’m not on some sort of religious or spiritual journey though, at least I don’t think I am. It’s not like I’m looking to have God save me or something. I suppose I’m just curious.

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Food Fight: My Struggle to Survive in the Kitchen

          Food essays are usually written by people who love to cook or who are experienced chefs. Sometimes people even do cooking challenges and then write a memoir about it (Julie and Julia, anyone?). Basically, people who write food essays tend to know what they’re doing. Yeah, this isn’t one of those essays.

            One would think that I would be a really good cook. My miemie (my mom’s mom) is an amazing cook and it’s impossible not to leave her house with enough leftovers to last for at least a few days. She spends hours, sometimes even days, preparing dinner for family events that are sometimes just as small as a birthday party.

            Her food is always delicious (and I’m not just saying that because I have to). As my family and I walk up her front path on holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, our mouths are already watering as all the different aromas seem to seep out of her house. And when it’s finally time to dig in, the experience only gets better. I can’t recall a single time that I haven’t left her table feeling stuffed.

            A few weeks ago she even sent me a letter in which she talked about her love of cooking and how it’s been something that my family has enjoyed doing for a long time now. “Guess I just followed in my parent’s footsteps; they both loved to cook. Some Sundays he would cook for 20-25 relatives,” she wrote to me. My miemie tends to cook enough for 20-25 people as well, despite the fact there’s only 10-15 of us.

            The amount of people that my relatives have cooked for seems like a lot to me, especially when I can’t even cook for just one person – myself. My mom is a good cook as well, but I don’t think she enjoys it in the same way that my miemie does. (I don’t think that Betty Crocker even enjoys it in the same way she does.) My mom usually makes a simple dinner that doesn’t require a lot of work, seeing as she works late on most nights. Not that I’m blaming her, but because of this, I never learned how to cook.

            My go to meal when I need to make something for myself is Beefaroni. This sounds kind of sad (and maybe even gross) to a lot of people, but I actually love it. I can also make myself cereal, toast, and Bagel Bites. I’m pretty talented.

            I’ve had many blunders in the kitchen because of my lack of experience, which have proved to make for some funny (and somewhat embarrassing) stories over the years. I remember the time when I was maybe fourteen or fifteen and my mom called from the road to ask me to make dinner. My parents and my brother were running late on their way home and my mom thought she could trust me to make a simple spaghetti dinner. She thought wrong.

            As I was preparing the meal, I was feeling really good about it. What could possibly go wrong when all I had to do was boil noodles and heat sauce? When my family finally arrived home they were starving and instantly dug into my beautiful creation. With the first bite, they immediately slowed down and looked up at me. Nothing (even their extreme hunger) could persuade them to keep eating it. Even I was repulsed by it, and spaghetti is my favorite meal.

            “Ok, talk me through what you did,” my mom said to me, and I started going through the process step by step.

            “I filled the pot three-quarters of the way with water and let it boil,” I began. My mom nodded as I listed off each step. “Then I put the pasta in. Then I poured the sauce into a separate pot and turned on the heat. I put water in the jar, swished it around to get all the sauce out, and poured that in the pot like you do. Then I stirred the –”

            My mom cut me off. “Wait. How much water did you put in the jar?” she asked hesitantly.

            “I filled it,” I said quietly. My family started to laugh.

            “Why would you fill it?” my mom inquired. “You’re only supposed to put a little bit in. That’s why the sauce tastes so funny.” I felt my cheeks turn bright red as I realized my mistake. I think I may the only person in the world who could possibly mess up a meal so simple.

            This is nothing compared to the time that I tried to ground up hamburger though. My mom called me from work to ask if I could start making dinner and that she would take over when she got home. I took the package out of the fridge, set it in the pan, and turned up the heat. After a few minutes I pulled out a wooden spoon and went to mash it as I’d seen my parents do so many times before. There was one problem though – it wouldn’t break apart.

            I stood there completely baffled. Why wasn’t this working? I took the spoon with both hands and stabbed the meat over and over, getting more irritated with each hit. Frustrated, I stepped back and looked at it. The meat was still in one piece with little indents all over it from where the spoon had made contact. I thought the meat must be defective, although past experience should have told me that the real problem was myself.

            I called my mom back and launched right into a complaint, telling her that I did exactly what she always did, but that it wasn’t working. She seemed as confused as I did until suddenly she stopped short. “Do you still have the package the meat came in?” she asked. I went over to the trash and pulled it out. As she asked me to read what it said to her, I suddenly stopped short as well. Needless to say, I had ruined a ten dollar steak and my mom was not very happy.

            I don’t just mess up actual meals though. I have this rare talent where I can even destroy microwavable meals. (Between my mom and I, we may hold the Guinness world record for most blown up microwaves.) I was making Easy Mac, which isn’t even real cooking, and I messed it up. My brother and I were in the kitchen when all of sudden an extremely repugnant odor filled the air. We quickly looked to the microwave, which was pouring smoke out from every crevice that would allow it. As I rushed over to remove my mistake, I saw that the bottom of the bowl was completely black and that the noodles were almost gone.

            As I realized that I forgot the water, my brother began to yell at me. “How could you forget the water? That is literally the only step,” he said. Although I was laughing on the outside, I wasn’t feeling so good about myself on the inside. How could I have been so careless? I began to wonder if I’d ever be able to cook for real.

            This summer I thought I would give it a try after I read Julie and Julia and decided that I would learn one new recipe a week (I wasn’t ambitious enough to do one a day as Julie had). I imagined myself learning all sorts of new recipes and blowing my family away with my new skills. Between a job, an internship, and the pure laziness of summer, I never got around to it though. I never even made one meal.

            Lucky for me though, being in college has given me the perfect excuse to rely on either the dining hall, or easy meals such as Ramen or Chef Boyardee. These college staples have allowed me to hide behind a microwavable meal and not have to worry about the day when I’ll actually have to cook.

            As I’m thinking of where I’ll be living next year though, my thoughts are leaning towards an on-campus apartment – with a kitchen. One with an oven and burners and everything. While this sounds exciting, it makes wonder whether or not I’ll end up starving to death – or burning the place down. I’ll be lacking a meal plan, and living off Beefaroni probably won’t be the healthiest thing for me. It’s getting to be the time where I should probably learn a recipe or two (for real this time).

            Some may wonder why I want to go through this hassle. It’s obvious that fate doesn’t want me and cooking to be friends, so why bother? My answer may sound somewhat cheesy or that of a fifties housewife (which I have no intention of becoming), but I really want to be able to cook for my future husband and children. I want to be that mom who always makes something delicious (and can do so from scratch as opposed to from a box). I want to be known for my secret recipes and gourmet dishes. I would love for my children to have a hard time deciding which meal of mine is their favorite and I want their friends to rave about me after staying for dinner.

            I also want to prove people wrong. As of right now, it seems highly unlikely that I’ll ever be able to cook like this. I’m sure anyone reading this is skeptical of whether it’ll even be possible after they’ve read my horror stories. I want it to be possible though and I truly want to learn to cook, for the sake of my future family and for myself.

            My miemie has offered to teach me how to cook and I think that this summer I’ll finally take her up on the offer. It’d be nice to learn a few things, or at least gain some common sense in the kitchen. It’s a valuable skill to have, and could possibly become a passion, like it has for the generations before me. Food and cooking mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life thinking that it’s something that can only be achieved through a microwave and a can. I also don’t want to accidentally poison my future children, because you know, it’d be nice if they lived past age two or so.

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Food Essay (Untitled): 1st Draft

            Food essays are usually written by people who love to cook or who are experienced chefs. Sometimes people even do cooking challenges and then write a memoir about it (Julie and Julia, anyone?). Food essays tend to be written by people who know food and know how to make amazing meals and dishes. Yeah, this isn’t one of those essays.

            One would think that I would be a really good cook. My miemie (my mom’s mom) is an amazing cook and it’s impossible not to leave her house with enough leftovers to last for at least a few days. She spends hours, sometimes even days, preparing dinner for family events that are sometimes just a small birthday party.

            She even sent me a letter a few weeks ago in which she talked about her love of cooking and how it’s been something that my family has enjoyed doing for a long time now. “Guess I just followed in my parent’s footsteps; they both loved to cook. Some Sundays he would cook for 20-25 relatives,” she wrote to me.

            That seems like a lot of people to me, especially when I can’t even cook for just one person – myself. My mom is a good cook as well, but I don’t think she enjoys it in the same way that my miemie does. She usually makes a simple dinner that doesn’t require a lot of work, seeing as she works late. Not that I’m blaming my mom, but because of this, I never learned how to cook.

My go to meal when I need to make something for myself is Beefaroni. This sounds kind of sad (and maybe even gross) to a lot of people, but I actually love it. I can also make myself cereal, toast, and Bagel Bites. I’m pretty talented.

            I’ve had many blunders in the kitchen because of my lack of experience, which have proved to make for some funny (and somewhat embarrassing) stories over the years.            
            I remember the time when I was maybe fourteen or fifteen and my mom called from the road to ask me to make dinner. My parents and my brother were running late on their way home and my mom thought she could trust me to make a simple spaghetti dinner. She thought wrong.

            As I was preparing the meal, I was feeling really good about it. What could possibly go wrong when all I had to do was boil noodles and heat sauce? When my family finally arrived home they were starving and instantly dug into my beautiful creation. With the first bite, they immediately slowed down and looked up at me. Nothing (even their extreme hunger) could persuade them to keep eating it. Even I was repulsed by it, and spaghetti is my favorite meal.

            “Ok, talk me through what you did,” my mom said to me, and I started going through the process step by step.

            “I filled the pot three-quarters of the way with water and let it boil,” I began. My mom nodded as I listed off each step. “Then I put the pasta in. Then I poured the sauce into a separate pot and turned on the heat. I put water in the jar, swished it around to get all the sauce out, and poured that in the pot like you do. Then I stirred the –”

My mom cut me off. “Wait. How much water did you put in the jar?” she asked hesitantly.

            “I filled it,” I said quietly. My family started to laugh.

            “Why would you fill it?” my mom inquired. “You’re only supposed to put a little bit in. That’s why the sauce tastes so funny.” I felt my cheeks turn bright red as I realized my mistake. I think I may the only person in the world who could possibly mess up a meal so simple.

            On the opposite end of using too much water, is the time that I used no water at all. I was making Easy Mac, which isn’t even real cooking, and I messed it up. My brother and I were in the kitchen when all of sudden an extremely repugnant odor filled the air. We quickly looked to the microwave, which was pouring smoke out from every crevice that would allow it. As I rushed over to remove my mistake, I saw that the bottom of the bowl was completely black and that the noodles were almost gone.

            As I realized that I forgot the water, my brother began to yell at me. “How could you forget the water? That is literally the only step,” he said. Although I was laughing on the outside, I wasn’t feeling so good about myself on the inside. How could I have been so careless? I began to wonder if I’d ever be able to cook for real.

            Lucky for me, being in college has given me the perfect excuse to rely on either the dining hall, or easy meals such as Ramen or Chef Boyardee. These college staples have allowed me to hide behind a microwavable meal and not have to worry about the day when I’ll actually have to cook.

As I’m thinking of where I’ll be living next year though, my thoughts are leaning towards an on-campus apartment – with a kitchen. One with an oven and burners and everything. While this sounds exciting, it makes wonder whether or not I’ll end up starving to death – or burning the place down. I’ll be lacking a meal plan, and living off Beefaroni probably won’t be the healthiest thing for me. It’s getting to be the time where I should probably learn a recipe or two.

            My miemie has offered to teach me how to cook and I think that this summer I’ll finally take her up on the offer. It’d be nice to learn a few things, or at least gain some common sense in the kitchen. It’s a valuable skill to have, and could possibly become a passion, like it has for the generations before me. I would like to be able to cook a steak without mistaking it for hamburger and trying to mash it up in a pan (true story), and to actually make a meal that people won’t be afraid to eat. Food and cooking means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life thinking that it’s something that can only be achieved through a microwave and a can.