The Cooking Experience

Most of us have at one time or another probably boiled an egg, right? But do you remember the first time that you ever did that? I do, and there's a good chance that I'll never forget it either! Surrounded by three brothers, both older and younger to me, I was the quintessential tomboy and had never in my life even looked at an egg except to wheedle my mother into making one for me. Naturally this state of affairs couldn't go on and one day my mother called me and my younger brothers into the kitchen. She said there was something she needed to do and could we please make the sandwiches for lunch. We agreed and gamely we set about the task. I was to boil the eggs, Jack was to butter the bread, Pete was supposed to make the coffee and Bryan had done a disappearing act, as usual. Well, the long and short of it was that some of the slices of buttered bread looked as if they had gone the rounds with Mike Tyson, and some of them didn't even have any butter on them; the coffee grounds were swimming in water and weren't dissolving because it wasn't instant coffee; and the eggs, once I shelled them looked worse than the bread if that was possible. In fact it looked distinctly as if it had suffered from the small pox. And no, I'm not making this up, it really did happen. Mom, bless her soul though, ate every single mangled sandwich we gave her and drank most of her watered down coffee As you can see my first introduction into cooking was an unmitigated disaster and thinking back it's a wonder that I even became interested in cooking, much less being able to put something edible on the dinner table. However, not only did I become interested but avidly so, and at one point I was even on the verge of becoming a chef! Luckily for the person I am today, I lost interest in that avenue of my life, although I did keep at my cooking. I also still climbed trees and roughhoused with the boys, but I would wait eagerly for my next cooking lesson. Cooking isn't the great passion of my life even though it might seem that way to a bystander, but it does take up a great part of it, and I'm grateful for the fact that I actually like cooking, otherwise my kids might have suffered from malnutrition! I know that many others dislike cooking with almost the same passion that I like it, but hopefully by reading this book, you might gain a little bit of insight into what cooking can be really like. This book is my small attempt at putting down into words all that I feel and know about cooking. It might not amount to very much in the eyes of many a great chef, but I feel proud to have come this far in my life, and I feel proud every time I step into my kitchen and whip up a meal from scratch. Before we explore any further though, I'd just like to get a few things cleared up. When I talk about the whole cooking experience, I'm not talking only about the actual part that involves cooking. To me the whole cooking experience begins with the germ of an idea that starts with, "Hmm…what shall I cook today?" Working from that, I come up with a meal to suit my mood at the time, then I set about gathering the ingredients that I need. After which, I'll either start cooking immediately or have a little break depending on whether my ingredients came from my larder and the fridge, or whether I drove all the way to the supermarket to find what I needed.