When I was young, cooking was something unknown and slightly evil, actually since 90 percent of our chore list was derived in the kitchen, that usually was a room I avoided completely. You never knew when mom would drag you into her flurry of throwing meals together, assigning menial tasks of hard labor to unsuspecting children. "Here, cut this onion up," mom would say, handing me a huge ball of either yellow or white, (depending on which we found along the train tracks in Texas). Just looking at the poisonous bulb would start the tears, before I even had the opportunity to dissect this foe with the dullest knife in history. On a side note the only thing that knife ever sliced to the bone and quite easily I might add, were my fingers when I was doing the chore of washing dishes with my brother (okay so we were fighting over who had to wash and who had to dry and I am not sure how it ended up cutting my fingers in the whole mess, but it still comes back to I hated the kitchen). That lovely experience took a trip to the emergency room, some strange doctor who barely spoke English putting my fingers back onto the right places and learning to write with my right hand. But I am getting sidetracked. Cutting an onion was painful, however the kitchen chore that left permanent mental scars was........ cleaning the percolator. I do not drink coffee to this date because of that stupid contraption. My job was after mom had made coffee for dad's breakfast, I had to take the metal insides of the percolator out to the front yard and dump the coffee grinds and the egg shells that always bred inside the kitchen sink, (laugh if you so chose, but as a kid, I knew the egg shell came first and it lived in the sink) and dump them onto my mother's flower garden. On the daily trip to the front yard, I had a special knack of getting eggshells and coffee grinds throughout the whole house, dripping bits of liquid coffee stain as I went. After getting the coffee grinds to adhere to me in a secure fashion while outside in the safe zone also known as the front yard, I would venture back into the house where said grinds would suddenly have an aversion to my skin and jump far distances throughout the living room, hallway, dining room, bathroom, and kitchen. The next step in this chore was to return to the kitchen and wash the metal container that somehow still had grinds residing in it. So now I have along side the dripping bits of liquid coffee stain, wet, sticky pieces of broken coffee bean to add the the decor. And as only a child can do in adjusting a decor, these grinds would in turn, attached to everyone's shoes, socks, bare feet and dog paws, spreading even further throughout the house. It is amazing how far a child can spread coffee remains, even though I am still not sure I ever got any on mom's plants, and I can still hear dad screaming as he would have to brush the grinds off of his socks to put his shoes on to go to work. Did I mention hating coffee and the mental scars? Yep, that was one chore I never got good at no matter how diligent I was at trying to keep the grinds where they belonged. I swore for years that the Jumping Beans you could buy in Mexico were actually coffee beans that just hadn't been broken into pieces yet.
By this point you should be wondering, why am I doing a blog that is on cooking and having fun in the kitchen?
Because somehow, after many years of trial and error for survival, (turns out knowing only how to make burritos and liver and onions does not go far in the newlywed years) I learned that the kitchen is a play ground and food can be healthy and fun.
I love to cook and I love to find ways to make dishes that are fuel for your body, that help you stay strong and healthy. Too many people don't care what they put into their bodies, grabbing what is convenient and wrapped prettily in the marketing ploy that it is "good for you!!!" Sorry but anything that has been sitting on your grocer's shelves, a packing truck, the distribution center warehouse, and the manufacturer's shelves for more than a month just doesn't sound yummy.
So join me in talking about food, cooking, fun and the exciting journey of me overcoming my fear of the kitchen!
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