The first thing I missed during my first week of college was my mother’s cooking. Of course, after that I ran the full gamut of homesickness, but I distinctly remember eating my third bowl of ramen that week and missing my mother’s cooking terribly.
Most of us go through that, though. When frozen dinners and eating out become our main sources of sustenance, we suddenly wish for dinner to be waiting at the table instead of having to prepare it ourselves. Even if we have a kitchen of our own, with a good cookbook and recipes from home as inserts, we don’t want to go through the trouble to make something that’s usually not as good as we remember it from home anyway.
I finally have a kitchen now, as well as printed-out recipes from my mother and two good cookbooks. After a few months, my kitchen is almost fully stocked with ingredients, and I can find my way around the grocery store other than to find the instant food section. I have every kitchen appliance I could ever need and more, thanks to all the generous gifts at bridal showers.
Sadly, that’s not enough.
Cooking is hard! Mothers (and fathers) can be very deceptive. I could see my mother throw things in a bowl and stick it in a baking pan, and it come out half an hour later looking and tasting perfect.
Of course I thought, “I could do that, if only I had my own kitchen!” Ah, the naivet?.
The first thing you need to learn is that most recipes lie, especially ones you get from home. For example, my mother made this thing called a potato puff. It’s sort of a baked mashed potato dish with sour cream and cheese, and it’s one of my favorite home cooking dishes. I love it! So, of course, I’d want to make it for myself. It seemed like no problem, since I had a recipe for it.
When I discussed with my mother my first disastrous attempt at making the dish, she told me that she usually keeps the potato puff in the oven for 10 more minutes than stated in the recipe. For my second disaster, she told me that she usually adds a little garlic powder instead of just salt and pepper.
For now, I’m taking a vacation from that recipe and just sticking to mashed potatoes.
Mashed potatoes is a problem in itself, though. This simple recipe made me believe I was a culinary genius. I made it for the first real meal I cooked, along with baked chicken and English peas. The mashed potatoes turned out perfect-creamy and delicious.
This leads to the second lesson of cooking: don’t get cocky.
The second time I tried to make mashed potatoes, I did it without a recipe. Later I realized I’d forgotten to add any butter, so it was merely an unappetizing mixture of potatoes and milk. The third time I used a recipe, but the potatoes ended up lumpy because I hurried while making it.
That’s when I decided to try macaroni and cheese a bit more often.
A third lesson of the kitchen I’ve learned very recently. Don’t get in a rut with cooking. You get tired of eating the same things over and over. If you want to save money, you’re fairly limited in what meats you can buy. Just don’t make chicken or pork the same way each time. And watch how often you make spaghetti, even though it’s the easiest thing to make in the world. You get sick of it really quickly.
Instead, experiment with cookbooks when you have the time. The other night my husband looked through a cookbook and found the most wonderful recipe for mushroom sauce and pork. It turned out perfectly, and we truly enjoyed eating supper. After that, I tried out a new recipe for bread pudding in a muffin form for desert.
I am only a young cook, and old pros (and probably my mother) would laugh indulgently at my weak attempts in the culinary arts. But you have to start somewhere, and with practice I can get better.
Until then, I just keep a pizza in the freezer.