{"id":18689,"date":"2020-11-01T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sasee.wpenginepowered.com\/?post_type=essay&p=18689"},"modified":"2024-03-26T15:08:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T19:08:37","slug":"whats-cooking","status":"publish","type":"essay","link":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/essay\/whats-cooking\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Cooking"},"content":{"rendered":"

As for spices, I may own three. (Do salt and pepper count as spices?)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey, what\u2019re you making?\u201d My older son had wandered into the kitchen as I was browning some breaded chicken for dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChicken with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese, which I will then cover with cream of chicken soup and bake in the oven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He surveyed the sizzling frying pan. \u201cIt would taste better if you added some tarragon. Do you have any tarragon?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tarragon? What the heck is tarragon?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUh, no, I don\u2019t have any tarragon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToo bad. Pick some up the next time you go to the store. How about paprika? You have any of that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paprika? Wait. That sounds vaguely familiar. It\u2019s a type of spice, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry, no paprika, either.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His lips flattened. \u201cLemon-pepper?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, give me a break. Is that a fruit, a pepper, a spice \u2026 what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He picked up a bottle of garlic powder and liberally sprinkled it into my pan. \u201cWell, at least the garlic will make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me explain. My son has spent the last few years as a cook in several various types of restaurants. As a result, he has become quite the \u201cfoodie.\u201d He has developed a gourmet palate and can wax theatrically on textures, subtle blends and nuances, and other masticatory adjectives describing food. Me, I describe food in one of two ways\u2013tastes good or doesn\u2019t taste good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a simple person who cooks simple food, and that is mostly out of necessity to keep from starving or going broke eating out. Breaded chicken baked with cream of chicken soup is about as gourmet as I get. Beanie-weenies is more my style. As for spices, I may own three. (Do salt and pepper count as spices?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s sad, really, as my mother was a good cook. She just didn\u2019t pass that gene onto me, but back then women had to know how to cook, as nuking frozen stuff in the microwave was not an option. I won\u2019t even discuss my mother-in-law, who not only made everything from scratch and was voted \u201cColumbus, Ohio, Homemaker of the Year\u201d in nineteen-sixty-something, but also ran a business, raised five perfect children, taught Sunday school, and received the Nobel Peace Prize for curing cancer. (Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little on that last point.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the fact is, my culinary talents are sorely lacking and it\u2019s rather embarrassing that my son is a better cook than I am. After all, aren\u2019t sons supposed to sing their mother\u2019s cooking prowess when a girlfriend or young wife cooks them something completely inedible? Somehow, I can\u2019t ever see that happening with my sons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One would think that having a gourmet chef living in the house would score us some fantastic meals. Unfortunately, it seems my older son is always \u201cout\u201d when there is cooking to be done. So my poor husband and I end up coming home after work and throwing something into the microwave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My older son did, however, put together a tasty pork stew a few weeks before Christmas. As we sat around the dinner table enjoying the rarity of having someone else cook dinner, my husband spooned a strange looking object from his bowl, \u201cWhat\u2019s this thing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a bay leaf,\u201d my son replied, \u201cdon\u2019t eat it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell what\u2019s it doing in my stew if I\u2019m not supposed to eat it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in there for flavor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank goodness my husband got the bay leaf instead of me. I would have just eaten it, assuming it was some epicurean delicacy, which was supposed to be good for me. Don\u2019t eat the bay leaves. Who knew?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As for spices, I may own three. (Do salt and pepper count as spices?) \u201cHey, what\u2019re you making?\u201d My older son had wandered into the kitchen as I was browning […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21555,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_gspb_post_css":"","rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"essay_type":[46],"essay-category":[93],"class_list":["post-18689","essay","type-essay","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","essay_type-features","essay-category-food-drink"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/18689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/essay"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/18689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"essay_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay_type?post=18689"},{"taxonomy":"essay-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay-category?post=18689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}