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.