My New Challenge

I have a new challenge for myself... learning to cook. I can't find a job if my life depended on it, I can't even volunteer my time ~ none of the charities have called me back. I guess they have enough volunteers with the Disneyland's Give A Day - Get A Day. So, I am going to learn how to cook a real meal.

I have started reading the basics and a blog about cooking. In the blog, I can guess that the lady writing is about my age and she has trouble just like me in cooking. She stated it well...

"My discomfort in my new role was due, in part, to the fact that it did seem so housewifey. But I was also intimidated by the kitchen. I had never seen it as my domain. It was, it seems to me, a uniquely Generation X moment. We Gen-X women are perhaps one of the first generations whose mothers didn’t teach us to cook.
While I was growing up, my own mother had worked hard running our family’s business and was often busy volunteering with civic groups. When she got home, she didn’t have a lot of energy for cooking. Though she’s always been a fantastic baker, cooking didn’t interest her. It wasn’t necessarily a feminist statement, as it was for a lot of baby-boomer women; it was just a fact of life. Mom couldn’t see the logic in slaving to prepare a meal for three that would disappear in less than 20 minutes. And so we ate meatloaf and spaghetti, Hamburger Helper and Tuna Helper; we ate pizza out every Friday night."

My dad did most of the cooking in our house growing up and we ate a lot of meat a potatoes ~ which included corn in every meal. I don't eat much corn today and I still do not like potatoes. My mom could cook a meal when she wanted too and it was usually outstanding. Growing up, I didn't want to have anything to do with the kitchen because whenever I did try to help, I usually burnt whatever I was trying to cook. I didn't have very good luck.

When Brett and I started to host parties, I got really good at making appetizers. That worked out well because everyone would fill up on those and wouldn't eat much of the actual meal which usually just so-so. There are a few other cooking items that I do pretty well with... turkey, roast beef, tacos and spaghetti. That is about it. Oh, I do make a mean pulled pork in the slow cooker.

I am really tired of eating pretty much the same thing week after week and I don't want to spend the money on Dream Dinners or going out anymore. I am going to learn how to cook. It is an agreement that I have made with myself and I am not going to get frustrated trying.

My Plan:
I will watch a few T.V. shows, use the internet and just try. If I don't succeed, then I will try again. Cooking isn't hard, I just need to break the barrier down that I have built up about it.

So, I will keep you updated on my journey to learning how to cook.