Cooking and other Adventures

Truth be told, I'm not a chef. I feel a little gypped in this category of genetic skills...it seems only fair that I should have gotten my mom's ability to create kitchen miracles (and if you've tasted her pizza or spaghetti, you know what I mean by "kitchen miracles"). Alas, it seems those skills went to my brother instead.

Jake began outshining me at the age of 5, when he would whip his own sauces at the Mongolian Barbecue while I was meticulously measuring out one scoop of ginger water, two scoops of soy sauce... It was pretty much downhill from there.

I mean, let's not mince words here, folks: I can be pretty disastrous. I once made a loaf of bread that tasted more like a salt lick (looked like one, too...). I also remember botching cookies from a recipe. Cookies! Recipe! My goodness, how much more inept can a young woman be? My matriarchal ancestors are rolling in their graves.

Senior year of college was an improvement. I baked a loaf of banana bread once that tasted okay. I made Sesame Chicken Pasta that was decent. Wild Rice Soup was a hit. Spaghetti was my fail-proof standby. Barbecue Baked Chicken was a reliable meal, too. And Top-Your-Own-Baked-Potato is pretty hard to mess up.

I started to feel better about my culinary skills. Not Le Cordon Bleu, but not hopeless.

Then I moved to Nigeria, where not only is everything metric (uh, how many grams are in an ounce again?), but recipes? Yeah, right.

So I found myself in a new country, unaware of what's available. No concept of prices. No standard measuring cup to be found. Guesswork became a part of every meal, and you know what? I'm not doing too bad.

I now make fish, and spaghetti (of course), and some mean chicken wings. I've roasted chickens and a turkey...I even slipped cloves of garlic under the skin. I mean, come on, how Le Cordon Bleu is that?!

I've blogged before about my (mis)adventures in pie-baking, and while Betty Crocker gets most of the credit, at least I know I can roll out a pie crust using an old gin bottle filled with peanuts! And my students all know and love my muffins...they sold out at a Student Council bake sale in about 3 minutes. (But again, most of the credit is due to Betty Crocker.)

Tonight, I made tacos for my Spanish Club tomorrow, after visiting 5 different grocery stores trying to find taco shells! Shredded cheddar cheese cost me $24 (I know, right? $6/package). I got 2kg (4.4lbs) of ground meat for $18. The shells were another $25. The seasoning packets were $8, but I found weevils in one packet, so I had to make do with one less.

I browned another kilo of meat for spaghetti, but realized I didn't have enough tomato paste, so I just bagged and froze it for later. Some of that meat went into the stroganoff I made for myself for dinner, which was really an alfredo pasta packet to which I added mushrooms and onions.

And, to top it all off, I did most of that IN THE DARK! We didn't have electricity while I was dancing my sweet kitchen tango of seasonings, pastas, sauces, meats, and chopping vegetables.

I daresay, I'm not a failure in the kitchen after all. I mean, it can only get better from here, right?