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One thing that has been a hurdle for me as a cook over the years has been facing some of my fears in the kitchen.
I didn’t really learn to cook until I was 30 and a new stay-at-home mother. Before that, my husband and I cooked together after work, but he did most of the work and I was his assistant.
Once my daughter was born, however, and I was home all day, it was time for me to learn how to cook. Back then, I stuck to recipes and didn’t venture too far off track. And there were a lot of things I didn’t try because I was afraid — the recipe was too complicated or time consuming or I simply didn’t know how to handle some aspect of the preparations
For example, I bought already-roasted chickens for years (as in, almost a decade) before I got brave enough to do it myself. Now, I roast chickens once or twice a month and it’s one of the easiest things I make.
After that success — and this was less than two years ago — I started getting braver in the kitchen.
In another example, for years I remembered my great-grandmother’s meatballs wistfully, wishing that someone would make them for me. Why didn’t I make them myself? Because I thought they were too hard. I tried to fake it by buying frozen meatballs, but we all know that they don’t even come close. Finally a few weeks ago — YES, just that recently — I gave it a try. It was SO easy. In fact, earlier this week, I mixed up the meat and other ingredients and made the meatballs with one hand while my other hand was busy holding the phone to my ear.
Now I’m looking around and trying to figure out what’s next. What other food fear do I have that I need to face? Nothing comes readily to mind, unless I want to delve into Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but the fact is that I’m not all that interested in cooking organs or dissecting a lobster.
But I’m curious: Is it just me or do some of you have food fears that you’ve faced or that you want to face?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t like making pastry. Not a fear. I don’t have a cold marble slab and it takes a lot of time to make good pastry. Like Ina Garten says – why make pastry when you can buy puff pastry dough … I’m with her. Something just aren’t worth it to me. I have been cooking since I was a child at my grandmother’s elbow in her kitchen. My first job was scraping new potatoes and making salad.
Julia’s book isn’t all about cooking organ meats but it does give you a good base for where flavors get their best start. Beef stock needs bones and organ meat to be rich. Don’t fear the organ meats. You don’t have to eat them if you don’t want them. Some neighbor’s dog would love you for it. Make the beef stock, get some Vidalia onions and then make her french onion soup. To. Die. For.
That’s a good point about Julia’s book.
As for pastry, I had forgotten that I don’t mess with it all. Mostly because I just don’t have the patience to do it right. Same with bread, but I have a breadmaker that I’m very happy with.
The older I get, the more I appreciate having been in 4-H. For us country gals, it was an easy, step-by-step way of learning to cook and sew.
My fear is of cooking for people outside my family. I’m afraid I’ll burn something, or ruin it, or it will be too boring, not fancy enough for company. I make big plans and then by the day of the actual dinner I’ve whittled it down to a main dish, a side, a salad, and a dessert, and you know what — everybody seems fine with that. Our fears are mostly in our own heads.
For me almost every meal can turn into a cooking fear moment, as I have had so many ideas go…so horribly wrong. It’s a constant learning process especially since I cook so differently than my mother. Sometimes I think I need to just dedicate myself to going through Julia Child’s cook book as well, just so I can relearn basics or maybe just so I can figure out how to cook grains without them turning to mush or burning.
Jessica, one cookbook that I’ve learned a lot from is The Joy of Cooking. It contains all of the basic recipes, as well as a wealth of useful information.