A Chef In Training

I have recently realized that cooking has become one of my favorite past times. This is both very surprising to me and not surprising at all.

Growing up, my mom loved to cook. She was working full time, going to school, and raising three kids by herself, but we always had homemade meals for dinner. Looking back now, I'm amazed that she put in the time and effort to do so. I know she did it because it was best for us and for our family (and our finances!), but also because she loved to cook.

I helped her in the kitchen often, browning hamburger, shredding cheese, and peeling potatoes. A few times, for young women's and such, Mom helped me make an entire meal. I never really got into, though, and by the time I was a teenager/young adult, I thought I just didn't like to cook.

I remember I was dating this guy once who obviously had an expectation of his future wife cooking the meals for him the majority of the time. We were talking about cooking and I said something like, "I'm not good at good at cooking and I just don't really have time to learn."

He stopped me there and said something about choosing what we put our time into. He, of course, was right, but at that moment, I realized I had zero desire to learn to cook. At least, at that point in my life. I was in school, working full time, dating, going to institute, writing a novel, running everyday, teaching myself piano, hanging out with friends, and soon after preparing for a mission. My life was so full of wonderful things and I was living at home. There was no reason for me to spend the time to learn to cook.

Six months later, I found myself a newlywed wife and Ben and I really wanted to eat healthy. That means making your own food, for the most part, though. Especially when you're poor college students living on less than 20,000 a year.

The early days were filled with a lot of cereal-for-dinner nights and really simple meals like bean dip, spaghetti, and chicken cooked on the stove in garlic powder. I remember the first time I made chicken. We had bought it and Ben was at work. I had literally no idea what to do with it, so I called my mom. She talked me through it and we had something edible that night, but there were definitely a lot more calls to mom about how to make something (or google searches!).

One night, I decided I wanted to make a white sauce for pasta. I found a recipe online, but it apparently wasn't a very good one. I added the milk, butter, and flour all at the same time, so the butter didn't mix in with the milk, and I ended up with a very interesting sauce. After calling my mom and realizing what I'd done wrong, I added a can of mushroom soup and some cheese to my pan in an attempt to save dinner. I thought it was so gross, but Ben told me that it was his favorite thing I'd made up to that point. He ate it all. I never made it again, though.

Since then, I've learned a lot. I'm still learning, but I am getting to be experienced enough in the kitchen that I can tell better by the recipe whether it will turn out well, play around with different recipes and have them turn out, and try new recipes for the first time without any disasters occurring (usually).

I love finding recipes, I love making dinners that go together and then sitting down together to eat them. I love making something and having it turn out Pinterest-perfect. I love having people over and making food for them. There's something about it. It's almost like an art, where you create something new, and I absolutely love it.