2007/07/09 00:16
Fifteen
Every night after dinner, my mom would get up and leave the table, and we'd try to follow her, but Jerry would stop us.
"You guys need to help out," he'd say. "She spent all this time cooking. We need to clean up."
I hated cleanup duty. Time wasted in a kitchen putting dirty dishes away -- dishes which weren't, after all, going anywhere and could certainly wait until someone who cared could wash them.
My mom would just shrug her shoulders when I complained. "Jerry's right," she said. "You have to help out in the kitchen. If you don't cook, you have to clean up."
She probably didn't expect me to call her on it.
By the time I was fifteen, I was routinely working as Mom's prep chef. If she needed carrots or onions chopped, I was there. If something on the stove had to be stirred continuously, the spoon was in my hands. If cans needed to be opened, pots filled with water for pasta, butter melted, veggies defrosted -- guess whose job that suddenly became.
Most nights Mom drove the dinner bus, but there were some days that I tried to take the wheel. I started small, with dessert -- a lemon meringue tart that I found in a cookbook I'd taken out of the school library. Or at least I thought I was starting small. The custard didn't set, the meringue deflated, and the crust simply dissolved into the runny, lumpy goo. It was literally inedible -- I took one bite and nearly spit it out.
But I was determined to figure out this cooking thing. It was fun, after all, and Mom wasn't going to be there to make my dinner every night. Eventually, I settled for easier processes, like the stir-fry. A melange of onions, green chiles, ground beef, tomatoes and beans was the launchpad for what is now my most popular dish -- The Infamous Chili.
In college, I discovered the cooking block on PBS and began watching religiously, devouring every technique and taking notes on dishes from different regions. A few years later, we got the Food Network, and the game was on. I was no longer a food hobbyist. I was a chef in training.
Of course, a stint in a real kitchen didn't pan out (mostly because I drove two hours every day to be paid like an indentured servant). But I still push my boundaries in the kitchen, making myself better with every failed casserole and spoiled souflee. And one day, I'll get that meringue right.
"You guys need to help out," he'd say. "She spent all this time cooking. We need to clean up."
I hated cleanup duty. Time wasted in a kitchen putting dirty dishes away -- dishes which weren't, after all, going anywhere and could certainly wait until someone who cared could wash them.
My mom would just shrug her shoulders when I complained. "Jerry's right," she said. "You have to help out in the kitchen. If you don't cook, you have to clean up."
She probably didn't expect me to call her on it.
By the time I was fifteen, I was routinely working as Mom's prep chef. If she needed carrots or onions chopped, I was there. If something on the stove had to be stirred continuously, the spoon was in my hands. If cans needed to be opened, pots filled with water for pasta, butter melted, veggies defrosted -- guess whose job that suddenly became.
Most nights Mom drove the dinner bus, but there were some days that I tried to take the wheel. I started small, with dessert -- a lemon meringue tart that I found in a cookbook I'd taken out of the school library. Or at least I thought I was starting small. The custard didn't set, the meringue deflated, and the crust simply dissolved into the runny, lumpy goo. It was literally inedible -- I took one bite and nearly spit it out.
But I was determined to figure out this cooking thing. It was fun, after all, and Mom wasn't going to be there to make my dinner every night. Eventually, I settled for easier processes, like the stir-fry. A melange of onions, green chiles, ground beef, tomatoes and beans was the launchpad for what is now my most popular dish -- The Infamous Chili.
In college, I discovered the cooking block on PBS and began watching religiously, devouring every technique and taking notes on dishes from different regions. A few years later, we got the Food Network, and the game was on. I was no longer a food hobbyist. I was a chef in training.
Of course, a stint in a real kitchen didn't pan out (mostly because I drove two hours every day to be paid like an indentured servant). But I still push my boundaries in the kitchen, making myself better with every failed casserole and spoiled souflee. And one day, I'll get that meringue right.
