I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham

I am many things, but one thing I am not.

I am no cook. Nor am I a connoisseur of foods. I do not know what most things on a fancy menu are.

What are these? Beef Wellington. Pork rillettes. Capers. Gorgonzola sauce. Potato gnocchi with Tahini parsley sauce. Yes, I had to look those up by typing in "fancy menu foods" because otherwise I would have no clue. The only one I've ever heard of beef wellington.

Reading recipes has always been a no-go for me. I have a friend who glories in reading recipes. I bought her recipe books for years for Christmas. She seemed to love every one of them.

Me? I have a Betty Crocker cookbook that I go to maybe twice a year, if that. Otherwise, my food comes out of a can or is premade at the grocery deli.

People don't believe me when I tell them I dislike cooking so much that I don't know how to do it, but honestly, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO IT!

Nor do I want to know how to do it. Not all that much, anyway.

Sure, I cook. I have to, because I can't afford not to. I can bake chicken. I can cook a steak (except filet mignon, I ruin that every time). I can make a pork loin in the crockpot and sometimes it is edible. I stir fry squash. I can make spaghetti with alfredo sauce, but the sauce comes from Ragu. I don't make it from scratch and don't know how to. I bake a decent turkey at Thanksgiving. 

But that doesn't mean I like it. It just means I can do it. Sort of.

When recipes call for specific things, I can't simply go to my pantry and get them. I don't have those things on hand like someone who likes to cook would. Let's say I did get a wild hair and decide to fix something from my cookbook. Most of the things I'd need would not be available without a trip to the store, and by the time I went to that trouble, the desire to cook would be long gone.

I see things in the grocery store that I would have no idea how to fix or use or do anything with. They stay on the shelves.

Nor do I have the appropriate cooking utensils. I am not sure what a well-equipped kitchen for someone who likes to cook would look like, but I am pretty sure it would not look like my kitchen, with my 40-year-old pan set, scratched cookies sheets, and a little bitty George Foreman grill.

I consider this a fault, this lack of interest in cooking and food, and it's probably a bad fault. It means, for one thing, that I likely eat too much salt (even though everything I buy is "no salt" or "low salt"), and certainly I eat too much processed food. And unfortunately, that goes for my husband as well.

But I have never liked to cook. My mother found that forcing me to cook was the absolute best way to punish me. And when something becomes a punishment, I balk. Apparently, I balk for the rest of my life.

And let's face it, I dislike handling raw meat. That is simply gross, taking a chicken out of its bag and watching the blood fall out all over the sink, then having to clean that up and wash out the chicken, and then butter it or cover it in olive oil or something to bake it. Blech. And it was even worse when I was a kid and my parents killed chickens. Talk about gross! Chopped heads and headless birds flapping around all over the yard while my brother chased after them, laughing the whole time. And then they had to be plucked and put in the freezer. Yuck.

I don't mind cooking vegetables if they are normal vegetables. I know how to boil green beans. I don't know what to do with Brussel sprouts except boil them, but I know they can be cooked other ways that actually taste better, because I've had them. What do you do with an avocado? How do you make a pomegranate work? How do you get into a pineapple (which I wouldn't eat because I seem to be allergic to them, but even so). I have never made mashed potatoes. I bake potatoes. Mashed potatoes come from Bob Evans in the refrigerator section of the grocery store.

I don't like frying foods at all - it takes forever, and I can't eat fried food anymore anyway. Fried food is too hard on my stomach.

Which brings me to another issue with cooking - I can't handle spices. Most everything I cook is bland. No spices on a baked chicken. Maybe a little Mrs. Dash on something once in a while, but no onion powder, no garlic powder. 

I have made chili exactly one time. 

I have made a cake from scratch exactly one time.

I have never made a pie.

I have never made a complicated meat dish, unless baked spaghetti counts.

I have never made soup, unless it came out of a Campbell's can.

I don't mind baking, but my idea of baking is a Duncan Hines mix. 

If a coffee cake from Bisquick counts as baking from scratch, then I've made a few of those.

I don't know how to make a quiche. I am not even sure what that is.

I haven't made homemade biscuits since I married. (They come in a can, or frozen.)

I haven't made pancakes, not even from a pancake mix, ever. (Pancakes come premade frozen.)

I've baked bread from store-bought dough but never made bread from scratch. Even with store-bought dough, bread is a challenge. I don't have a good place for it to rise.

I do not find joy in cooking a nice well-thought-out meal. I don't want to do that. It takes all afternoon. I love my husband and want him to have a nice meal and all of that, but I do his laundry and stuff. I'd rather read a book than spend hours in a kitchen.

He doesn't starve, at any rate.

People who find joy in cooking have my deep admiration. They are like nurses - they have a knack for that and a special something that I lack.

The cooking gene went to my brother.

I just got the eating one, I guess.