*singing* I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad

As I've mentioned before, my mom couldn't cook.  Her mom never taught her because her mom was raised in a well-to-do home with a live-in nanny/maid/cook and never learned herself.  Seasonings were a foreign concept to mom.  Her dishes tasted like the packaging they came in.

Please know I'm not making fun of my mom.  She knew her culinary limitations and even joked about it.  She had a grand sense of humor.

Her afternoon routine was as predictable as an atomic clock:  At 5 o'clock she would assume her position at her end of the couch with her book or magazine and a cup of coffee.  Around 5:30 dad would arrive home from work, change clothes, and sit in his chair and read the newspaper for a while.  By six it became obvious nothing was going to happen in the kitchen that evening, so dad would say, "Would you like to go out for dinner?"

At that mom would jump up with the look of excitement a Publishers Clearing House winner would have seeing a camera crew on their porch and squeal, "Uh huh!"  That just made her day.  She had made it one more day without having to cook.

Her whole day was spent in dread, literally.   She couldn't enjoy her day for fear of what she would do if an invitation to eat out didn't materialize.  She once told me that "meal planning" was the most stressful thing in her life.  Not meal cooking, but meal planning.

I never understood that.  How hard can it be to look into the refrigerator or the pantry and pull out something to eat?  (Assuming you can afford food.)  Why is it so hard to keep some meat loaf or a beef or chicken dish or some kind of pasta on hand?  They all come pre-packaged for the "cooking challenged".  Same with those freeze-dryed crops some people also put on their plates. 

It would be like me driving into a gas station and saying, "OMG...OMG...which pump should I pull up to?  Number 4?  Number 8?  Oh...the horror!  Oh no!  Now I have to pick an octane, too?  Why do they make it so hard?  Whatever shall I do?"

Yesterday K came home after work and announced that planning something for dinner was simply too stressful for her to contemplate.  She couldn't bear to do it anymore.

I think I've told K mom's story once too often.  Me and my big mouth.  ;)

S

My (very) unsophisticated palate

My palate is almost Neanderthal-ish in it's simplicity.  Meat, potato....eat.  

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.  :)