WANNA BE MARTHA
Will
someone please tell me why some people can go into a kitchen
and create a culinary masterpiece in five minutes without
even breaking a sweat, while others (namely me) can spend
all day in hell (the aforementioned kitchen) and come out
with nothing to show for it except an extremely short fuse?
I have never been able to understand how some people can
‘whip a little something up’ using a can of stewed
tomatoes and a piece of bread and have it come out tasting
like heaven on earth, (Yes Diana, I AM talking about you!)
while the only thing I seem to be able to ‘whip up’
is my anger at not being able to ‘whip’ anything
up.
I
have had a Love/Hate relationship with the kitchen for as
long as I can remember but lately it seems to have gone
into the realm of Obsessive/ Compulsive. I’ve had this
thought in my head ever since I was a young girl of about
twelve and I’ve never fully been able to let it go;
it was put there by my seventh grade Home Economics teacher
who was West Park Junior High’s version of Martha Stewart.
Everything this woman did was absolutely without fault whether
it be making a three piece suit from scratch for her husband,
making the ‘perfect’ Halloween costume and treats
(from scratch of course), or cooking a seven course meal
with a smile so tight that her lips seemed to almost disappear.
Being in the same room with this woman absolutely terrified
me because everything about her was sanitized and scrubbed
to within an inch of her life, everything had a place and
there was a place for everything. I was definitely in the
wrong place. I think I might be the only girl in the history
of West Park Junior High to have failed Home Economics.
And I was told in no uncertain terms that I would never
make a good wife or mother because I couldn’t cook.
How sick is that?
It
isn’t for lack of trying, you know. I have tried on
many occasions to get over my fear of cooking, but it doesn’t
seem to be abating at all. Take for instance my foray into
tofu milkshakes. I had this idea that I would make myself
a tofu and fruit milkshake every morning for breakfast in
the hopes of shedding a few pounds, so I put the tofu and
passion fruit in the blender…pit and all. The blender
and I parted ways after that. Next we will move on to my
attempt at making lasagna…honestly, who knew pink meat
was a bad thing? We will then go on to the one time I attempted
to make guacamole (those damn pits will be the end of me,
I swear) and I added so much cayenne pepper that my guests
were literally weeping and not in a good way.
I
think it’s safe to say that Martha Stewart has nothing
to fear from me, but that’s not what I’m angry
about. Why are we taught at such a young age that if we
don’t know our way around the kitchen we will never
be good enough? That if we don’t know a tablespoon
from a teaspoon or a cup from a quart we will somehow fail
as human beings? And why on earth would this completely
repressed woman so obviously stuck in the fifties even think
that I would be the one cooking for my mate? My thinking
was quite simple: How was I going to find the time to make
a bloody casserole for his dinner when I was going to be
busy running the country?
I’m
never going to be a gourmet chef. I’ve never aspired
to be one. What I would like is to stop poisoning people.
I would like the looks of terror to stop when I mention
the words Dinner and Party and I would dearly love to see
that tight-arsed old bat again so I can show her just how
wrong she was about me. I can’t cook but I can stir
the pot better than anyone else I know.
he