Scott like.
Well, maybe not quite that simple, but you get my drift.
I'm a product of my childhood. My mom was an absolutely wonderful person. She would give the shirt off her back to help someone....anyone. She loved kids, and was a prolific volunteer for anything involving education. (At the time of her passing she was a 50-year Life Member of the PTA.) About the only thing she couldn't do was cook.* It was an absolute mystery to her what a stove had to do with making water boil.
She couldn't cook because her mother never taught her. That's because her mother was never taught to cook. That's because her parents (my great-grandparents) were well off (for their time) and had people to do all those mundane chores for them that life required....cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing, etc. Food just somehow appeared on the table. That's all they knew.
I can remember mom getting all distraught when she knew she'd pushed her luck about as far as she could getting dad to take us all out for dinner (for about the fifth evening in a row). She was going to have to break down and....*gulp*....cook something.
With big 'ol crocodile tears in her eyes she'd lament, "Meal planning is just so stressful for me." Then she'd retreat into the kitchen for what seemed like hours and finally emerge with a bunch of heated up corny dogs and some tater tots, all of which were frozen solid 15 minutes earlier.
My dad used to be impressed with her chicken and dumplings *blech* until he found a can of them hidden away in the back of the pantry. (No one ever actually saw her cook anything.)
On holidays dad would buy a turkey and take it to the local barbecue house and have them smoke it us for a few cents per pound, and my grandmother would bring the cornbread dressing. Mom made the mashed potatoes, which were just potato flakes mixed with hot milk, and for dessert we had a store-bought pie.
My point is, I wasn't raised eating gourmet foods. I'm pretty easy to please, and my bride K can flat cook up a storm. Lucky me! Imagine my shock when I read on K's Facebook page that "planning dinner stresses me out".
Oh puh-leez! How could meal planning, especially to please me, be stressful? It's deja va all over again. Will my future now be endless breakfasts of mom's cinnamon/sugar powder sprinkled on bread and toasted? And mom's specialty....her baked ball of meat? (It vaguely resembled a meatloaf, except without any seasonings or taste.) *shudder*
I think I'm having a flashback. Could this be PTSD? You think this might qualify me for one of those "close-up" parking stickers?
S
*I'm not talking about mom behind her back. She knew well her culinary shortcomings and was the first to have a good laugh about it. :)
