As a stay-at-home mom, I feel like it's my responsibility to make healthy meals for our family. It is not my favorite part of the job. You see, I am not a very good cook - and when I suck at something, I try to avoid doing it every single night!*
What does dinner entail, anyways? Research (aka web surfing), prep (aka shopping) and cooking (chopping, measuring and stirring). Sounds easy? We all do it? We all have to eat? Why do I still have so many misadventures in the kitchen?
My husband is great - he will eat anything as long as it is warm and served with rice. 'I love that there's so much ginger in these meatballs, ginger is good for my cold', 'It can't be too rich and saucy when you eat it with rice,' 'It tastes ok, since I like things saltier than you do'...my reply is always the same 'But I followed the recipe!'
The 10,000 hours rule must apply. I've logged, maybe, a couple hundred. (Pouring milk into the cereal bowl doesn't count). I have convinced myself that if I put in enough time, things will get better.
The truth is, things are improving! I now have a full list of disaster proof meals (written on the chalk board). I also have a bunch of recipes to retry, only this time tweak them to our tastes. In fact, I am able to adjust a recipe, the first time, if I think it has a little too much of this, or not enough of that...I am really doing it! The more success I have, the more I want to cook! I've even stopped thinking of it as 'my job,' and I started to look forward to meal time! How crazy is that?
What changed? I finally figured out that, even though I might make something only so-so tonight, there is always another meal tomorrow!
Tell me, what did you have for dinner tonight!?
*Well, not every night, since my husband enjoys cooking. He shares as much as the load as possible. Tonight I bought veal chops because I know he will slap the porcini mushroom dust on them and fry them up. My husband often makes dinner on the weekends too!
ps. 'One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.' ~Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story....Seriously man, we have to eat every day. Why not eat well?
pps. I didn't want to move the lily plant for the winter, I also don't want the heat of the rads to cook the plant. It already drinks a lot of water! Then I found the marble chinese checkers board, that I bought in November 2010! I hope it helps! I almost wrote the post about finding a home for another one of my thrifted treasures...
