Comment: Fear of Cooking

So I went ahead and dropped some coin on a couple of cookbooks today.

I may as well get this out there now, though. I’m a cookophobe. (culinariphobe? chefophobe?)

I fear cooking. Especially meat. I haven’t read Fast Food Nation but I have driven past the stockyards in central California and if that’s not enough to make you never want to touch red meat, I don’t know what is. (Sure, I like to EAT meat. I don’t like to touch it in its rawest, nastiest form.)

Cooking never really interested me, and now I have to take an interest in it. My husband courted me with food. He’s one of those annoyingly intuitive cooks who can’t really teach you because he doesn’t follow recipes: he just knows. His food rocks. But he’s very busy with a new and demanding job. And we’ve got to eat, so I’m the one holding the (grocery) bag. And it sucks.

As a relatively creative person, I found it hard to believe that all I could make each day for supper involved some form of noodles with some form of cheese. Our food was boring, unadventurous. I didn't know how to break out of it.

So with optimism and pluck, I bought two vegetarian cookbooks today. One of them looks especially good, because each recipe only has five ingredients. I looked at some of the popular cookbooks, too, but rejected them summarily: Barefoot Contessa? Way out of my league. Ditto Martha Stewart. My cupcakes will never be adorable. Rachael Ray? Too many ingredients and way too complicated. I think you need a degree to cook her stuff. 30 minute meals, my ass. I don’t have two hours for dinner-making.

The Joy of Cooking is a standby, but I’m not looking for béarnaise sauce recipes, or how to cook Sally Lunns. I just want some easy ideas involving real food.

So I’m going to see if once a week I can make one dish from one of these cookbooks that my family actually eats. Ambitious of me, I know. But I’m sick of freakin’ noodles and cheese and I think my kids are, too. How are they going to expand their culinary horizons if I’m just giving them the same crap every day?

So onward, to better health, no raw meat, and hopefully, not too much whining when the food’s put on the table. (Especially from me.)