Good Thing I Kiss Better Than I Cook....

I wish I could tell you that I made this wonderful, gooey treat called "Monkey Bread" but I didn't. In fact, Abigail made it. This was her first attempt at baking something and I am very proud of her.

You see, cooking and I have love hate relationship. I love to provide something for my family that they enjoy eating, especially when they think I am wonderful for cooking it. But, I hate that cooking, for me, isn't a more enjoyable activity. It never has been and perhaps never will be but I continue to try.

I think it all stems back to the fact that I never learned how to cook. My mom worked since the time I can remember and being the youngest of 5 kids I never learned to make much of anything. I remember making minute rice...a lot. BWHAHAHA! Like that is something to be proud of! :)

I don't recall my mother cooking very much at all. It was not until her much later years that she began buying every recipe book and magazine known to man and would grace the table with her trial recipes but that was years after all of us were long gone from home. I suppose it was then that she had more time to cook.

What I do remember is that everyday after school my brother, Richard, was responsible for starting whatever was for dinner. Honestly, the only thing I remember him making was goulash -- hamburger and onions browned, cans of whole tomatoes, pasta and salt and pepper. That is truly the only dinner I remember other than liver and onions and on those nights I didn't eat. (Blah -- I don't understand eating an organ that filters impurities out of the body -- no matter how much iron it boasts. Give me an iron supplement any day!)

So anyway, I never was taught to cook and so I entered married life with a handicap. And not knowing how to cook IS a handicap! It wasn't so hard to muster up the desire to cook since I wanted to take care of Tim and please him with impressive meals but the fact was that not knowing HOW to cook overwhelmed my desire.

I want to like cooking and want to have people like what I make but the fact is that with 8 of us in our family there was no pleasing two people at the same time! It actually got to be quite comical when something as easy as spaghetti for dinner turned me into a short order cook -- Young Tim wanted only butter and salt on his spaghetti -- no sauce. Andrew wanted sauce. Jordan wanted spaghetti with the sauce on the side! Jacob ate it with sauce and made it his personal mission to WEAR his sauce...behind his ears, behind his knees...I am not even kidding! Abigail and Annah decide it was butter and salt for each of them. So even something as harmless as spaghetti became a complicated ordeal. Don't even get me started on my picky eaters......

So between my inability to cook and my family being less than cooperative at every meal, cooking lost its appeal. It's not that I don't cook -- I just don't find a lot of joy in it. It's something that has to be done so I do.

That said, my girls have renewed my desire to cook. Mainly because I don't want them to be handicapped like I was when they are out of the house. I have long wanted to teach them basic cooking skills so that they are have more to go on than I did.

So, Abigail and Annah have been experimenting with cooking and I couldn't be happier! I think, hands down, they have a better and more positive opinion of cooking. Their husbands and their children will be very happy! :)

That said, I am still proud of the fact that.......

So life is good!

*This sign now graces my kitchen. :)