Maybelle Crabtree here. My girls watched television cooking shows when they were going up. They plopped on the couch after finishing their homework and watched the different food channels until dinner was ready. One of the shows they watched, actually the whole family watched, showcased bad cooks from across the country. We watched with amusement as two professional chefs tried to teach incompetent, ordinary moms and dads how to properly prepare a meal for their families.
One Fateful Night
Yes, it was quite a hilarious show until that one fateful night when Laurel who was in junior high school at the time turned to me during a commercial break and said, “Gee, Mom, you should go on that show.”
“What?” I said, shocked and somewhat insulted. “No one has ever died or gotten sick from anything I make.”
“That may be so, Mom,” Matthew chimed in, “But your cooking doesn’t taste very good.”
“I’m not saying you’re a bad cook,” my middle child explained, “but you could be a better cook.”
I looked over at Tom who was ignoring the whole conversation by doing something on his cell phone. I knew I wouldn’t get no support from him.
“Mommy,” Holly softly said, “they’re just telling you the truth. Don’t you always want us to tell the truth?”
Cooking Memories From Childhood
And there it was; my words coming back to haunt me. Yes, I always want them to tell the truth. Honesty is the best policy after all. But sometimes the truth hurts. I know I’m no Julia Child but I do my best. I didn’t have a very good example in the house I grew up in. Mom was not domestic. Food was either frozen, canned, or boxed. Hamburger Helper was a mainstay in our house. In fact, it wasn’t until I met Tom that I found out rice took longer than a minute to cook. In my day, the high school Home Economics class was about managing a household budget, how to set a table properly, and which utensil to use when.
Tom introduced me to fresh vegetables and taught me broccoli didn’t have to come with cheese sauce. Actually, Tom was the cook when we first married and he enjoyed it. After Matthew was born, however, I took over the kitchen duty because Tom’s work hours changed, causing him to work later into the evening.
A Hapless Cook
I bought cookbooks – several of them – hoping to find inspiration. But my end product didn’t even closely resemble the picture in those guides. Cooking was not fun. It was another chore to knock out each day.
But my family members never complained. Maybe there was something in the air or my aura that told them not to say a word; just eat whatever Mom makes. At least I never told them the story of the poor, starving children in China who would be grateful for the food on our table like I always heard my mom say to my sister and me. “Well, pack it up and send it to them then,” my sister once replied. That remark got my sister KP duty for a week and I learned never to say anything bad about Mom’s cooking.
Is Cooking That Hard?
Now I turned my attention back to the television screen. I watched one person burning something on the stove. Another one almost lost a finger chopping an onion. Still another forgot to put the lid on the blender and liquid flies everywhere when the machine is turned on. Are they really this inept or are they pretending for the entertainment value of the show? I wonder. Do they do this so that the rest of us can feel better about ourselves because we’re not that bad?
Both of the girls took Culinary Arts – the new, fancier name for Home Economics – in high school. Sometimes they brought home samples of their creations which were pretty good. But did they ever help me cook or prepare one of their school projects at home for all of us to partake in? No! They didn’t! And it makes me wonder if I’m passing on the mindset that cooking is a chore.
Finding the Secret Ingredients
Now that Tom is retired, he’s back to cooking more often. Sometimes we cook together. He is the executive chef and I’m the sous chef. And you know what? It’s fun. Working together to create fresh, healthy food makes it taste better too. It’s more enjoyable. Maybe that’s what my mom and I didn’t understand. Cooking was a chore because we worked alone. It was overwhelming. We didn’t know about the secret ingredients: company, bonding, love.
I have someone sharing the “chore” with me now and it’s not so bad. Maybe the next time all the kids are over, we’ll make cooking a family event. Everyone in charge of a dish. A five-course meal for all of us to dine on. It’s not too late. They don’t have to wind up like Mom and me disliking the meal-making process. Maybe I can break this tradition. Maybe they can still learn. I can still teach them and then, maybe, their kids won’t submit their names to the bad cooks television show.
So what about you? Have your kids, or grandkids, ever let you know how they really felt about your cooking? Send me a comment and let’s discuss. Maybelle Crabtree signing off.