Cookin…good

Anyone that knows me…knows I am domestically challenged. I can make a pair of butterfly wings out of 4 straws and a roll of toilet paper…but ask me to cook…and whew…! We went shopping for fruit and salad making stuff today, nothing that requires a pan, a platter or an oven …. taking a day away from the gallery madness. I saw my Husband looking longingly at some form of pasta. There were about 18 different kinds sitting on the shelf…which all taste exactly the same to me… I guess it comes down to which one is less challenging to eat. I told him, in a moment of recklessness, go ahead…get one! Well, as luck would have it, he took me up on it.

Then of course, you have to pick out some of that dreaded red pasta sauce. I just grabbed the Trader Joe’s store brand. What’s the difference. I knew perfectly well I could burn them all the same! Then of course he had to have some form of meat by product in it so, heck, I grabbed some turkey-chicken sausage looking thing out of the refrigerated section. Man, I was really on a roll. Heck, why not get some bread and some of that fake cheese in the green can. Nothing like shaking your cheese from a hole pierced can…so off we went.

Arriving home…First off, I had to look for some pans. My pans are somewhere in a drawer with paper towels in between to keep them from scratching! I don’t know why I should care if they get scratched because I actually haven’t looked at them for at least 6 years, but apparently I did care at one time. I also found some of those big spoons, both pierced and not pierced, in the same drawer. Hell, I didn’t even know I owned any of them. I was reaching gourmet status! They had to be from someone else’s house, left over from someone else using my kitchen to cook in…for me!

Well, anyway, I studied the pans trying to determine which one was supposed to hold the separate items. I decided on the biggest pot for the noodles. I got the package and here came my first stumbling block. “Add 4 quarts of water to a pan”. I had no idea how much water 4 quarts was so started to look at my cell phone thinking of panic messaging . I stopped and pondered. I found a measuring cup…God knows where it came from…but nothing about quarts. I actually found another one that was larger…but still nothing. I got out my blender…yes, I do have one for smoothies! No, nothing about quarts!. So I had to go to Google. Heck, they know everything! 16 cups of water to 4 quarts! I went back to the kitchen and studied the pan trying to determine how much water it would hold. Then I thought, “I’m not going to use up all my damn bottled water on these stupid noodles” so I went to the tap. I figured it was going to boil anyway, so whatever was floating would be incinerated! I added 16 cups of water with a one cup measuring thing…it took time…but heck, I was cookin! I put it on the stove and tried to decide if I needed a lid. “Yep, I might as well!”

Then I took the fake sausage out of the fridge and started cutting it up into pieces. Now I have lots of knives but only one will actually cut. I think I bought the rest with my friend Kathy at Pic-n-Save when we were teens. The one that does cut is only about 2 inches long…so yep, it took a while. I studied the pans left and made a choice for the fake sausage. I had no idea if I was supposed to put something in the pan with the sausage…but I didn’t have anything anyway, so in it went… solo. It did take me a while to realize I didn’t turn that portion of the stove on…but finally I mastered it. I then went confidently on to salad. Now salad I know. I eat the stuff everyday so a-washing I went.

In the meantime everything started bubbling and boiling, spitting and hissing at once… so I yelled at my Husband to come help me. He knows just as much as I do but it was his bright idea so I told him to “Stir something”. It was about this time that I looked at the fake sausage package and realized it was already cooked! I like food burnt anyway, just like my Mom always made, so I didn’t feel it was going to be a real problem… as I watched my Husband running in and out of the room , trying to keep tabs on a basketball game at the same time. The pasta water at some point looked like the term “rolling boil” so I added the noodles and then I looked at the clock on the microwave. 8 minutes! Mike added the sauce out of the jar to the sausage and wow, we were actually cooking real food!

I completed my salad and went to work on a fruit plate. Yep, I know fruit too. Then I dragged out some bread and remembered we didn’t get any butter, suspiciously found some in the fridge…no idea how old it was or where it came from…but it looked like butter to me…so I spread it on the bread! The pasta was done so I left Mike to drain it somehow. I was to afraid to watch. I knew he wouldn’t sit at the table, being the sports fan he is, so I tried to find some trays to carry it all on. I came up with 2 things that looked slightly like cookie baking sheets, flat, silver but only one edge bent up? Feel free to claim them if you read this and they’re yours!

Well, it actually turned out pretty good. At least we both ate it and retained it in our bellies! He settled in for his game and I carried all the stuff back to the kitchen. Now I will say that even though I don’t cook, I never mind washing dishes…unless of course it’s Thanksgiving and it’s involves my Grandmother’s first edition, first year…Dessert Rose dishes that I’m actually terrified to handle. So I started to run some water in the sink when the dish soap came to my mind…and the fact that I didn’t have any and hadn’t for some time. I searched around the house and decided on the “Pure and Natural” hand soap in the bathroom… because it has a nice rosemary mint smell and is hypo allergenic too! That had to be good for something! Then I realized I would need dish towels and couldn’t find any because I probably used them years ago to shine some shoes or dry a cat. I went to the linen closets and got out the bath towels. I draped them all over the counters and rolled up my sleeves and went to work. I just finished and they are sitting in a huge pile…drying. Eventually I will put them away…but as for cooking, I feel I’m good for at least another 6 years. I’m definitely open to any offers to cook for me though. I promise to wash all the non-Dessert Rose dishes ya got! 🙂

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