I have a theory about cooking. Despite what many people (particularly those who cook) claim, it’s not simply a matter of “following the directions.” Even the most rudimentary recipes love to toss around cooking terms that non-cooks struggle with. What exactly is a “pinch” of something? Would that be like a tiny, baby cheek pinch, or a big ‘ol butt-grabbing pinch? And how much of something is a “smidgen?” Or a “scoach?” And every recipe includes at least one instruction to “sprinkle to taste.” How the hell would I know unless I lick the bowl as I go?? Of course, if you DO get actual measurements, they’re often flexible. This doesn’t work for us. “One-half to one tablespoon” just makes non-cooks crazy. Which is it, dammit? One half tablespoon or one tablespoon?? It’s your recipe. You tell me.
One year, Kenny made the unfortunate choice to get me some huge binder called “The Joy of Cooking.” (Yeah, like he got lucky that night.) Every recipe called for more ingredients than I have in my house in an entire year, and after the third try of a ridiculously complicated side dish (got all the way to the bottom, and it read “Pour sauce over top before serving. For sauce recipe, see page 322.” SERIOUSLY??), I frisbee’d the stupid book out my back patio door and onto the soccer field next door. Poor thing got run over by a large rider mower and has now gone to confetti heaven, where it belongs.
Interestingly, my sister is an award-winning chef and valedictorian of her culinary school. Magazines take photos of her food, and her menus are chosen for edibility and presentation. Given the fact that the only pictures of anything I cook are on the front of the microwavable box it comes in, she is, to this day, convinced there was a hospital mix-up and her “real sister” is still out there. I just keep telling her that some of us were born for other things, and I was born simply to be fabulous. She’s not buying it and repeatedly asks my mother, “Are you sure she’s ours??”
Finally taking pity on me (or Kenny, who lost 14 pounds in our first year of marriage before he realized I truly couldn’t cook), Sissy sent me her “EZ Lasagna” recipe. (Note to Self: “EZ” to Julia Child and “EZ” to ‘When in Doubt, Pop Tarts are Always an Option’ are not the same thing).
First step, chop the onion. Halfway through it, I’m crying so hard, I can’t see my knife and I slice my hand open. Wrap that up (hopefully before I bleed into the sauce, but it’s tomato, so I’m admitting nothing), and move on to “simmering” (What number on the dial is “simmer?” Again, SPECIFICS, people!), which, no matter how low I go, spits and splats tomato sauce everywhere, including down the front of my favorite shirt. Well, crap.
Then there’s those damn noodles that need to be stirred while boiling, and without thinking it through, I stirred with a short fork, plunging my hand into the boiling water. Yeah, that hurt. Tried pulling the cooked noodles apart to layer them in the lasagna pan, burning my 2 remaining undamaged fingers and shredding the noodles. Oh screw it. Promptly dumped the entire mess into one pan, baked it for 45 minutes, and told Kenny it was Hungarian Goulash.
He’s happily scarfing it down, while I’m downing 3 ibuprofens and an entire bottle of wine. Dinner is served.
Too damn funny and you need to link this up Friday with Finish the Sentence, because the sentence to finish is “I tried to cook..” And this would work perfectly, lol!! :)
Oh, please do link this up on Friday, it’s perfect! I have the same issues with recipes. Just tell me what a freaking pinch is!!! I need specifics because a) I’m a detail-oriented person, and b) I’m not a chef. I like to cook sometimes, but I am well-known for messing up new recipes about 75% of the time. I skip a step, don’t read ahead (like the sauce you were supposed to make) or misread a word and add the wrong thing. I do it so frequently that it’s become a joke in my house. Whatever.
I’m sure we’re related?
Ha! That’s why I use the No-Boil lasagna noodles! Just throw it all together & presto! You’re an Italian chef. My Italian friends scoff at this. You are too funny & I identify with your cooking inability 100%!!
Well….you DO have the “fabulous” part down-pat :-)
Ha! I’m a master of the throw shit in a pan and hope it turns out school of cooking…
Crying with laughter!! Oh Jesus, this is SO FUNNY!!! And since you already know we are NON-COOKS, this is so real!!! LOVE THIS POST!-The Dose Girls
A wonderful share Janine; Thanks for sharing and enjoy your day.
Eddy.
I really did Laugh out Loud. That was so funny! I love to cook so I can’t really relate, except the Joy of Cooking does do that horrible thing where it says, see page for the next part of the recipe.
I always tell my husband…I am a Stouffer’s Lasagna/Hamburger Helper/Easy Mac kind of cook. He ate my burnt suppers and I would have made him choke it down and say “thank you, may I have another” if he said anything about it. I warned him before we got engaged, so he knew what he was getting into. My mom couldn’t cook, so I was never taught. Does this bother me? Nope. Like you said, some people are just made or better things. I am a snarky diva. And my mother-in-law can suck it. She once said her baby boy deserved a home cooked meal, I told my kitchen was always open if she wanted to oblige. :)
Ok so u can’t cook. So I can’t get jello to jell. How hards that. Ok finely last week Scarlett dig the at least 10 year old jello boxes out. Saying please. Well I boiled it telll I thought it was going to burn. Then its the wait. Knowing the jellos old an inever jells when new. Well I did it it got hard. So there’s hope.
This is why SAH cooks. :D Joy my a**.
I’ve never thought of renaming a meal that didn’t turn out. Great idea.
You and me sound like cooking soul-mates. Hate it, can’t do it, so had to marry a man who could cook. I just wrote a post about this for the Finish-The-Sentence Friday link-up (“I tried to cook…) so if you decide to link-up (you should!), you can read about my cooking fiasco when my husband and I were first dating.
You and my wife need to get together and start a cooking school. 33 years together and she can still burn noodles. Hilarious!
Hey there! I saw your ‘PLEAD’ on Bloppy so your wish is my command- I’ll follow along. Love this cooking post. I LOVE to cook- it’s the laundry I suck at. Hope to see you on apleasanthouse with a follow.
I can manage the cooking part. It’s the timing part I suck at. If I start dinner at 7, we eat at 8. If I start it at 3 in the afternoon, we still eat at 8. I’ve just accepted that unless somebody else cooks it, supper-time is 8.
You are so funny! And if I don’t make it over here often enough, it is my own damn fault!
These types of stories are exactly why I eat things that do not require cooking! Great post, Vikki. I was giggling several times until I burst out at Hungarian goulash!
You are so funny! And it seems you cook like my sister (perhaps that is who they switched your sister for at the hospital). She ate my fried rice many, many times and finally asked for my recipe…well I don’t use a recipe because I have never been able to leave the ingredients list alone, I add this, take out that…
So I say, “Cook your rice and set it aside till everything else on this list is heated up”, then I give her a list of ingredients that are all steamed together. Well she is thinking ‘fried rice’ so she fries up the rice! Then sets the crispy brown rice aside and steams the rest of the ingredients, then mixes it all together and calls me to complain that her rice is so damn hard and crunchy she can’t possibly eat this!
Oh my dear sweet silly sister…she apparently didn’t know how to cook the rice…so it is soft! Gotta love her.
Holly
Funny stuff. And I see I’ve found a fellow “can’t-cooker” (it’s a word, look it up). My recipes usually go as follows:
1) Heat oven
2) Take frozen chicken nuggets out of freezer
3) Insert into oven
4) Come back in 25 minutes
Dinner is served!
This was fricking hilarious! I loved the “baby pinch” verses “butt pinch” reference! I’m actually a good cook, most likely because I believe food is the one true joy in life (along with staring at Ryan Gosling’s abs). It sounds to me like this was a success!
OMG you sound just like me when it comes to cooking! My sisters are also dismal failures in the kitchen, but luckily we ended up with guys who LIKE to cook.I really went to the extreme, though, and married a Frenchman!
Loved this! :-) The only things I make well are cookies, spaghetti, and reservations. For the rest, you takes your chances. You want a delicious, well prepared meal at my table – bring take-out.
I’m there with ya (as I confessed in my post, http://www.femme-de-finesse.com/im-not-juliachild/). Maybe you’re MY sister?
Honeylamb, you Kill me! Charlie always claimed I used the smoke detector as my cooking timer! He was right!
This is so funny and I totally also sympathize since I hate cooking too! Coming from a line of excellent cooks, it is a disappointment, but, hey, you know what?! You’re right…people like us were born to be just fabulous! :D
Awesome and so damn happy you linked this one up, Vikki!! :) :)
All I can manage is ‘Wow!’
Great post.
Sounds like you’ve been in my kitchen. I’m with you on the vague directions – Rachel Ray does that all the time – one swirl around the pan with olive oil..what does that mean? I either end up burning the food or drowning it in oil.
This was hilarious!! I need recipes spelled out for me too. The recipe should also say, “Wear an apron when you are simmering tomato sauce in your anything but black shirt.” I have made a lot of three stooges moves because the recipe wasn’t clear. I loved the frisbee-ing of the cookbook.
I’m totally guilty of the whole “pinch” of salt thing. To me, a pinch is just a tiny bit, but if you’re ever watching a cooking show and an actual “chef” says to add a pinch of something, it looks like they’re using about a tablespoon!! It freaks me out how much salt they use! Some people get annoyed with how specific I am in my posts, so I point out exactly what you’re talking about – not everyone knows what xyz means. I’m probably still bad about it in parts, but I always try to write with non-cooks in mind. :)
Are we still living in the 50s? Why do women feel that they must be able to cook? I am actually quite serviceable in the kitchen (and I cook well too) and nobody in my house has ever gone hungry.
For me, a lot has to do with liking flavorful food. I seem to have a sense of what “sprinkle to taste” will actually taste like.
Keep being funny, let hubby do some cooking!
WG
If I didn’t love and adore you before? I. So. Do. Now. Like serious love. Not the kind where you need to call the cops but massive crush. I am a cooking failure. My husband will one day learn that saying “my granny (southern boy) was the best cook in the world” will not only NOT get him dinner or loving but probably a pan thrown at his head. One day. Not today, though.
Hilarious! My wife tries so hard to cook. Sometimes it works, and most of the time … well, let’s just say I’ve learned not to be picky! In all my years of cooking and trying to teach her, I’ve learned two things: 1) if it’s a good quality of meat, I need to cook it (so it’s not overcooked), and 2) compliment her on her efforts even if it tastes terrible. To me, cooking is all a matter of timing. Base everything around the primary entre, and time the completion of side items so that they’re ready when it is. That way, everything’s hot and ready to serve. In other words, slice the plastic seal, microwave for three minutes, remove plastic and stir, replace plastic and microwave for another three minutes! lol Great job!
Woman! You are hysterical! This is just what I needed to read to start my day off smiling! I read the next post, too — about the Bra! OMG! Just stopping by from the GRAND Social Linky Party. Thanks for sharing!
I spent a short time in culinary school and can’t make a recipe work out for the life of me. I throw crap together and it tastes fine, but make me follow directions and we will all have food poisoning…
Visiting from The Grand Social. You are hilarious. I was seriously expecting a goulash recipe. And, as someone who didn’t learn to cook until I was in my fifties, I can totally relate.
Too, too funny! I’m so glad you linked this to the GRAND Social, as I love seeing my other grandma friends learn of you, your blog, and your gut-busting sense of humor — even if you can’t cook a darn thing!
Love, love this! ♥
Two ingredients. That’s my limit. Here’s my best. Chicken wings: bake chicken wings on wire rack for 20-40 minutes depending on how how you want them to be. Soak in Durkees or Franks hot sauce. Nothing fancy. Just cayenne hot sauce. Cook again until crispy. Better to err on cooking too much. Have blue cheese dressing and lots of beer handy. Pesto pasta really complements this well, another two ingredient recipe. Cook pasta, add pesto.
Visiting again from the I <3 my blog hop!
Thanks for stopping by the blog hop at the Owl’s Skull. I laughed several times while reading your post! I absolutely despise -The Joy of Cooking- myself. My favorite cookbook is Rachael Ray’s Big Orange Cookbook. It never fails me!! Alice @ The Owl’s Skull
I cannot believe that your husband lost 14 lbs just by marrying you!! Lol!!!
I’m commenting again because this post is HILARIOUS (and I followed it through the Monday blog hop). It’s so damn true- all of it!
hi, i’m following the “i don’t like mondays” blog hop. i would love for you to visit my blog and follow if you like it.
http://www.blackinkpaperie.blogspot.com
thanks
new follower bev
LOL! Vikki, I have to admit, I love to cook, but it wasn’t always so. And I’ve been there. It took an ex telling me that he could do anything better than me. We broke up when the only thing he could do better than me was pee standing up.
On a happy note, my current hubby married me for my culinary skills with wild game. ;) Moose chili, anyone?
hahaha! And ouch! Girl, you need those lasagna noodles that you don’t have to boil. Just bake ’em with the lasagne. But goulash is good too. That was pret-tay resourceful. I believe in cooking they call that “spring boarding”. That’s culinary for “making the shit up to save your ass”. ;)
Now THAT’s the mark of a true cook! You take a recipe, and “re-work” it…you’re a genius! Culinary school, schmulinary school… ;)
Got a visual on the confetti heaven. Have sent a few books there myself. OM goodness, still laughing.
Hahaha Cheers to being simply fabulous! I’m still wondering why I slave in the kitchen trying to be a better cook. Why can’t we have McDonald’s everyday?! The I remember that I promised my husband I would be better in the kitchen so I continue to make the guessing game of what a pinch truly is in the kitchen.
I about peed my pants! This is so funny. I can see each step you made, watching you all the way. Such a great ‘true’ story. I love cooking, and have learned to improvise and create my own dish through ‘their’ eyes, whomever wrote those recipes/books. (Although it took a while.) What were they thinking? Sitting there just making up a recipe with “pinches” and “about’s”. Probably saying “oh well, they’ll figure it out!”.
THANK YOU On the recipe speak! I don’t want to even admit how many times I asked my mom/sisters/random people on the street, “Um, excuse me, what is fennel? Where do I even get that?”
(p.s. fennel is gross, unless you’re a sausage lover.)
Yeah, so I’m the girl that can have a map AND GPS and still find myself miles from my destination so I totally get this. Cooking has NEVER been my strong point and I have ONE cookbook in my home collecting dust. It was a gift from my grandmother for my 13th birthday. Apparently, this is the age where I should have known my role and opened the thing. The only reason I still have it is because she passed away and I can feel her judging me from Heaven. I can screw up a PB&J. No matter how “EZ” the recipe is, if I’m cooking it, it’s not going to be edible. Support group?
Ha! Spot on again, my dear! recipes are overrated. Like instruction manuals for, well, anything. Most of the time you wind up with something inedible (but could have another life as a head gasket or spackle.) My rules? Never cook anything with more than 4 ingredients–you must try my brisket some time. Rule 2: marry someone who likes to cook.
This only gets worse with age!
I so love & get this post, Vikki! Following cookbook recipes is like doing a research project for me! Have never even heard of many ingredients – have to Google ’em & then try to figure out where I’d find them in the store. Most days that’s just too much dang work – so meatloaf it is again. :)
Omg this made me laugh out loud because I so identify with this. I completely ruined Stove Top Stuffing, once. Did you destroy the 1962 edition of Joy of Cooking where they teach you how to skin a squirrel? Damn! lol The receipes I follow are like reading books. Perhaps this is what you need – a recipe that gives every little step along the way. That’s why I love Alton Brown (and when I say love, I mean it :P ) A great number of his recipes calls for a lot of ingredients and speciality equipment etc but if you can find the simpler ones (ie Knead Not Sourdough, etc) it really gives you all the detail you need. No “pinch” no “smidgen”. Everything is EXACT. (You need a scale, in fact). And the first rule of thumb whenever you’re cooking, and hopefully you know this thanks to your sister, is you ALWAYS taste your food when you’re cooking!
WE MUST be related! My twin brother is a professional chef. I, on the other hand believe that anything that takes more than two minutes to prepare is a waste of time.
So, you can’t cook either. I believe this makes us related :-)