eat it up

I love to cook.

At 16, when my mother was anxiously trying to pass on some of her food wisdom, I never would have expected the above statement to be true.

To be honest, I was intimidated by the measuring cups, the saucepans and the kitchen stove.

The idea that with a prayer and a great recipe (or no recipe at all!) one could whip up something delicious was completely foreign to me.

When I moved into my first apartment (after living in the dorms and eating cafeteria food all year..,remind me, how is the first year of college any different from high school?), I lived off of grilled cheese sandwiches, condensed tomato soup, and cheese quesadillas.

(I know, Mom, you taught me better than that.)

It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I had an epiphany I could almost taste:

I can do this; cooking really isn't that hard.

I learned that the worst that can happen is that you have a great story to tell about the time when you burned the toast three times in a row, or when you forgot to grease the cake pan.

And the best than can happen is that you make a batch of brownies that sort of become legend in some circles, or you sit down to a Sunday dinner that actually resembles your grandmother's cooking.

But more than just cooking, I really learned how to eat.

I learned to like* salad.
I learned that almost any vegetable tastes delicious if it's sauteed in olive oil and salt and pepper.
I learned that the best chocolate cake doesn't come from a box, but from my grandmother's recipe book.

This is all just to say that I'm feeling pretty confident with the knowledge that my future children will not starve, and even better, won't survive solely PB &J and macaroni and cheese.

*read: tolerate
**A couple of weeks ago, I discovered Orangette....oh to make delicious food and write about it all day.