Me Me Me

Here’s a terrible admission from the former Alabama State President of the Future Homemakers of America (!): I would be perfectly happy never to cook another meal until the day Saint Peter greets me at the pearly gates. I am easily stressed out, and cooking provides a maaaajor source of stress for me. The ingredients! The chopping! The timing! The cleanup! Oy, let’s order Mama Mexico and be done with it. 

My darling husband, thank goodness, truly enjoys cooking. If he had the time (and he does not, since he works 24/7), he would thumb through his carefully saved issues of Cook’s Illustrated every night and brine something. (That publication loves brining, whatever that means, plus using rubs, herbs and all kinds of things I can do without on my food, thanks! Just looking at an issue of Cook’s Illustrated stresses me out.) What an adventurous cook he could be if he had the time, and our adorable son would be happy to sample anything he might make. Our adorable daughter and I would just as soon have his world-famous mac and cheese, chicken with gravy, and fried okra. Now THAT’s good eating!

I’ve made my share of meals, but the truth is, if my mate wasn’t here, the Henderson family would have no gravy (chicken, turkey or beef — he’s great at all three), no homemade cornbread, no beef stew (from a weird but tasty recipe in Cook’s) and dozens of other family favorites. We’re having a dinner party tonight with fancier food on the menu (stress!!) and I’ll get the table ready, make the salad, and perform sous-chef drudgery, but he’ll oversee the meal. Luckily, he enjoys it.

Tags: Cook's Illustrated

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.