My youngest son, now 23, was staying with me for a while this past year. I got so mad at him because he wouldn't do anything around the house and, being me, I struck out in my normal method -- I wrote a story about it. Included in the story was the following paragraph.
My youngest son keeps talking about “getting his own place,” but has, thus far, not shown any ability to look around and see that something needs to be done. He can look at dog hair all over the floor and not think about sweeping the floor. One night he looked at a mirror I have in the dining room and commented on how dirty it was, but it never occurred to him to clean it. I have had him in the kitchen a couple of times and, with me stepping him through what to do, he has managed to turn out pretty good food. He just can't remember what he did so he can do it again later. I'll keep working on him and, at some point, get him where he can make up something.
After writing that I went off on a tangent as I often do and started thinking about the cooking done in my family over the years and the difference in styles and abilities.
Types of Food
My mother cooked good, wholesome meals for our family: most were boiled or roasted. She made a few things that were really great. I can particularly remember her spaghetti and meatballs, chop suey, and tacos.
My dad never cooked until we moved into our own house where we had a brick barbecue. His menu on that consisted of only hot dogs and hamburgers. I don't remember him ever cooking a steak or chicken on the grill, and I have no idea when he started cooking for real. When mom got too sick to care for herself he evidently picked up the cooking tasks and concentrated on meat and potatoes in every meal. He also bought a lot of frozen dinners and pizzas that he could just heat and eat. He cut out recipes from papers and magazines all the time and collected over a thousand recipes. He was not an experimenter, he followed the recipe exactly. As a result he had a lot of variety in his diet, but he could never make something without having the recipe in front of him.
My Grandma Webb was a farm wife and, although I can't remember exactly what she served, the table was always loaded with meat, potatoes, veggies, and dessert. I also remember that I liked everything she cooked.
My Grandma Maxwell also loaded the table with the same types of foods. Because they lived on a chicken farm, there was nearly always chicken on the table.
My first wife, Robin -- what to say about her expertise? When we lived together in Paris she was attending the famous Cordon Bleu cooking school and each night she would experiment on me by fixing whatever she learned in class that day. She had also lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and learned a lot of Brazilian and Portuguese cooking. She was great at fixing gourmet dishes. When we lived in NC, however, she was not up to fixing daily meals for just the two of us and she got bored easily. I'm ashamed to admit I was a typical male-chauvinist when we were married. I worked, she didn't, so when I came home from work I expected to be fed. I honestly don't remember ever cooking while Robin and I were together.
My middle wife, Mickey, like mom, cooked good, solid, “stick-to-your-ribs” meals. She made more Mexican food and was willing to experiment occasionally. When she did that it was either great or -- well, like when made tacos using beef tongue -- YUCK!
My last wife, Debbi got off work at five and her old boyfriend got off at seven or eight and she was expected to have dinner ready. When we got together she was shocked the first night when she got home from work and found dinner ready for her. We traded off cooking as long as we were together. She was not really into gourmet or “fancy” cooking but she had an extremely wide array of items she could prepare. She also experimented a lot in the kitchen, sometimes mixing a bunch of things I would never think of and ending up with something really great. I don't remember ever seeing her use a recipe, she just thought about what she wanted to fix and did it.
The Kitchen
Mom ruled our kitchen and didn't want dad in there while she was cooking, but she always had me helping her and I learned all the basics of cooking from her.
