Home-cooked

When Matt and I met when we lived in Colorado, I didn't cook. Rather, I didn't know how to cook. It's embarrassing to admit, but the first 'meal' I 'made' for him was a spoonful of peanut butter dipped in sugar. I must have been drawn to dipping food in stuff, because my College of Charleston roommates and I would dip pretzels in a mixture of mayo and mustard. Sounds gross, yes, but it sure was a tasty treat when we were new at living on our own. (Right, Denise?) Literally, the only things I was adept at 'cooking' were those Knorr rice and noodle sides and ham sandwiches. It goes without saying that my mom wasn't super successful at teaching me the art of preparing meals, so I ate out a lot when I flew from the nest. Couple that with the beer-funneling minor, and it's no wonder that my badonkadonk grew to the size of Kansas.

Luckily for me, Matt liked to cook, and he was always eating food far different than that on which I was raised in the South. As I was used to homemade meals traditional to the genre of southern home cookin' with once-a-week spaghetti mixed in, Matt was all about experimenting with international-inspired food... stuff that I liked, but stuff that I thought you had to get from restuarants. For instance, I was beyond shocked to know that real people in America could make Thai food. Right there. In their kitchens. Who knew?

After we got hitched and collected all of the neat new kitchen products, I decided that cooking actual food might not be such a bad thing. Part of it had to do with the fact that Matt likes to eat a lot. And he's not necessarily a tidy chef (well... he's not necessarily tidy at all). In order to keep some sort of order about the kitchen (and keep the bugs and mold out), I had to learn to take up the reigns of food preparation. (For real, people, I don't know how he did it, but I would find food on the flipping ceiling, on the walls in the next room, and other places that laws of physics say it shouldn't have gotten.) So, part of it was interest and part of it was compulsion.

Either way, I discovered that I love to cook. And I'm not that bad at it. I like to try different things and I attempt to use fresh ingredients and healthy recipes as often as possible. (This is a far cry from days of sugar-dusted peanut butter.) One of my fave websites for recipes is eatingwell.com, and if you're looking for wholesome selections, I highly suggest checking it out. For the most part, our little family loves my cooking. Summit's often a hard sell, but the kid is addicted to candy and fruit, so I'm not so surprised. Ella totally enjoys eating my meals, and she always asks for seconds.

Unfortunately, though, I wasn't so on top of things this evening, so during supper when she asked if the food was home-cooked, I was sorry to say that it wasn't. I was short on time and looking for a quick fix. So, I told her, "No, honey, it's not home-cooked, but you are." And after I thought about it, I do make some pretty good food, but I've been even more successful at growing my babies. For me, they are the most delicious, sweet treats in the world.