Yah, me too. It’s kind of what happens when you microwave one too many Morningstar Chik Patties and you look over at your child and he’s already shaking his head saying, “Nooo, noooo” like a frightened peasant woman who’d rather eat yak than another godamn chik pattie.
You have to understand: Chuck and I are Cereal People. The staples of our diet have been Special K, Honey Bunches of Oats, and beer. I did deviate one year when I ate a lot of frozen corn (Chuck was doing his own thing with General Tso’s chicken), but we have been remarkably content with food stuffs that float in milk.
Which is why one of my bridesmaids gave me this for my wedding present:
And why she inscribed it with this:
Well, isn’t that cute of her. She who can cook! She who can go into a supermarket, randomly select ingredients, go home and whip something up. Something that people will eat instead of pushing it around on their plates then politely suggesting pizza.
Want to know what I made Chuck the first night we lived together? Chicken parm. It was easy: I baked a few turkey breasts, slopped on some American cheese, then doused it with jarred spaghetti sauce. The next night I fried up some Italian sausage in butter then tossed in undercooked pasta and Italian salad dressing. Don’t forget the side of candied carrots.
Cereal, as you see, was just a natural progression.
Do you know how I yearn to breeze into my kitchen and successfully use exotic things like cumin and leeks and capers? Some days I daydream about the nanny coming over to find a counter full of freshly baked goods sprinkled with Juniper berries and Cardamom and shichimi-togarashi, whatever the hell that is. She’d stuff her face all day then go home and tell everyone she knows that Mrs. Mullet feeds people the right way. She’d say how satisfied she and her kid and Jager are. And I’d feel satisfied.
See, that’s the crux of it—I want to be culinarily fertile. I want to leaven a lasagna, birth a moist banana nut bread, souse a Succotash.
But more than anything, I want my son to go “mmmm” when he eats something I made. Not something from a box. Not even from a recipe. But from La Cucina de Mrs. Mullet, dammit.
Do they make a chik pattie patch? Gum? They’re just so springy!
