May 5, 2015
Yesterday I put a grill together by myself. I realize I’m a 41-year-old woman with a master’s degree (in a completely unrelated subject) and this isn’t rocket science; but for a gal who is mechanically disinclined and a tad impatient and a tad more accident-prone, what we have here, my dears, is a miracle. I went to the store, bought it, loaded all thousand pounds of it with my brute strength into the back of my mom-mobile, drove that sucker home, unloaded it piece by piece from the back of said mom-mobile, and read the slightly cryptic directions. Sure, I may have cussed myself a few times for my general idiocy. You can bet I sat down at step 20 or 30 and reevaluated this particular choice. But no one saw that nonsense (so why am I now admitting it?). All anyone is to see is this masterpiece of a grill that WORKS. It works. When all was said and done, all screws tightened and prayers said, the burners lit and the food cooked. And the house didn’t burn down.
I’d hate to dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back, but I can work a grill (kind of). Okay, I can grill a piece of salmon into delicious complacency which has made salmon one of my son’s favorite foods (and was such when he was just a wee tot). In fact, when I do plan to make a meal out of this offering from the sea, I will greet Drew in the pick-up line at school with “guess what we’re having for dinner?” Salmon is the answer he offers up without hesitation. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that there is little else I make that is nearly as edible…
Cooking is not the gift God gave me at the point of departure from the we-aren’t-quite-human-yet heavens to in utero. Maybe they were short on culinary skills in the supply room that day but they had plenty of sarcasm and a tendency to be just a smidge critical to pack into my DNA. Hey, you get what you get. And you can be bitter about it if you so choose. I have chosen to glean what I can from the master chefs in my midst: my Aunt Diana could kick Paula Deen’s (allegedly) racist ass any day of the week. And her sister, my Aunt Judy, is especially gifted with the sweet stuff. My Nanny made a spaghetti that I can still taste (of course, she could also heat up a Swanson TV Dinner like a champ). My Mimi made cinnamon rolls that we all fought over and hoarded. My mother-in-law can kill a cow and make it into dinner in one fell swoop. My stepmother knew twenty ways to jazz up a potato, as this starch was the requirement of every meal at my father's table. And they all made it look easy. As a child, I just ate every bite until my elastic big-girl pants couldn’t take it anymore. Then I grew up a little and begged for recipes and instruction. The results were some very flat cinnamon rolls and a host of attempts at recapturing the morsels and the memories that shaped my digestive childhood. Trust me, though, the women in my life with all the skills have been gracious and giving.
But I tried, and I try still. Now that I am no longer employed “outside of the home,” donned in pearls and heels each day, I keep trying to develop into the domestic goddess in the kitchen that God meant me to be, had the supply room been amply stocked. I would say that my attempts to impress my hungry family with new and exciting creations have been successful, but the truth is quite the contrary. Oh, they eat it and they are kind. But the night I threw a package of Knorr teriyaki noodles into a pan of boiling water and presented it at the familial table and they gobbled it up and pronounced it the best thing I had ever made, a little part of me died.
I suppose the silver lining is that I live with some folks whose standards are low…or just processed, canned, frozen, or best met in a drive-thru.
Anyhoo, now I have a grill that seems to recognize the difference between high and low and may just do me proud. If it stops working, I doubt very seriously it will have anything to do with the fact that there were two screws left over at assembly’s end. It better not stop working. My ego is on the line. And I think I’m out of Knorr noodles.
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