Me, The Cook

It is generally accepted that I do not know how to cook. As the Relief Society President in my ward, the bishop was known on much more than one occasion to inform the ward of that as well. And I thought that was just fine. People don’t need to think they need to be excellent cooks to be a good person.

My brother, however, is an excellent cook. He always has been. The bar-b-que sauce he made when we were younger was better than anything else I’ve ever had. I believe he got the cooking genes in my family.

I cook well enough though. I have been living on my own for more than ten years now, and I’m not dead yet, so I can cook well enough to live. But I am no gourmet chef by a long shot. And I consider that perfectly acceptable and I am happy with that aspect of my talents. Yet recently it kept me up at night.

There are three meals that I am known for – homemade from scratch chicken and vegetable soup with breadsticks; Waikiki meatballs, rice, homemade dinner rolls, green salad, Jell-O; and lemon chicken with rice, green salad, and rolls or breadsticks. I do those three meals extremely well and think they are pretty classy. But they are not the only things I know how to cook.

So instead of counting sheep, I stayed up about two months ago counting all the things I know how to cook. In my mind, I separated them into two different groups – things I can cook completely from scratch, and those that I take something partially prepared and add my own special flare or whatever. It got to be quite a very long list. And I felt very pleased with what I can do.

Now if I could get someone to clean up after me, I’d probably cook more.