Cooking

As I’ve said before, I’m five years younger than Ada (the sister next to me).  If my siblings were going to do anything away from the house, they had to have their chores done first.  They were always in a hurry and it was much easier to move me out of the way and get it done.  That pretty much left me out in the cold when it came to learning how to do things like wash clothes or cook.  If I didn’t get by osmosis, I didn’t get it.

Both Mom and Dad were good cooks.  All their siblings and various offspring could cook.  My brother was and my sisters are good cooks.  That left me. 

Growing up, we always had a garden.  Dad always had three pigs and one calf fattening out to kill.  We had a smoke house and I can remember salting meat and making case sausage in the kitchen.  We also had chickens :-(.  The frowny face is because, as the youngest, it was my job to pluck and scrape them and we never killed just one or two.  We froze them whole.

One day when I was about 12, Mom called and asked me to get supper started because she was running late.  She said there was a chicken thawing in the sink; fry it and make some mashed potatoes and gravy.   I had never cut up a chicken.  I knew how to get the wings and legs off, so I did that.  Then I grabbed it at the neck and jerked.  What came apart is how it was fried up.

Sarcasm is an art form in our family and Harold Wayne (my brother) was a master at it.  He ate without saying a word.  Then he held up his plate and said, ‘that was pretty good.  How ‘bout you pour some of those taters on here, cut me a slab of that gravy to go on top and give me some more of those chicken ribs.’

Of course, I didn’t think it was funny then but now…I tell the story often and laugh every time.

I guess I absorbed more than I thought because when I went to Bible school, I got a job in the kitchen as an assistant cook.  By my third year, I was a head cook.  Imagine that.

For family gatherings, my bunch tends to assign me things that are easy to fix and hard to mess up (which shows what they think about my cooking).  I don’t mind.  Besides, I don’t cook that much now because it’s just me (seriously, my sister and niece both cook and I just walk over and eat at their houses). 

I know; I’m spoiled and proud of it.   

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