Memoir Assignment First Draft- Family Relationships, or What I Learned About Cooking

Cookbooks speak of a different era. Good ones have thick pages and added notations like “needs more milk”. The ones now are new and slick with big photos, and never have food stains on them. Most recipes have been uploaded online, all one needs is to go to epicurious.com. There’s still a market for old cookbooks though, in which Amazon reigns supreme. Need a James Beard cookbook? It’s one penny and three ninety nine for shipping.

Where I’m going with this is that my father collects cookbooks. Local ones composed by women’s clubs with plastic spiral spines are his favorite. He often tells me a good chef can look at a recipe and know what it will taste like. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I can remember the way meals taste years later. He’s told me which Joy of Cooking's are the best years, i.e. look for the 60s, and to not laugh so hard at Jello salad recipes.

If you’re looking for a chocolate chip cookie recipe, he would advise to look on the back of a bag of Hershey's special dark, but you have to “fix” the brown sugar. For dishes requiring wine, top shelf is not necessary. Any five dollar plonk will do, as long as it’s not drinkable. Citrus goes with fish, and cream is for both pasta and chicken. With Asian food, he’s terrible and will defer to me for advice. Not that I’m an expert, but I've eaten more Pho than he has. Salmon does well with a mustard and teriyaki glaze, and that’s about as exotic as he gets.

A lot of cookbook combing goes on in Goodwills. One time on vacation, we were scouring a Goodwill from top to bottom when my mother was about ready to explode from perceived germs. It was so humid outside, there was condensation on the interior windows and she had had enough. “I’m leaving,” she hissed and went to hide inside the car with A/C. And that was that.

The more books my dad acquired on his library shelves, the quieter my mom got. If anything, there was barely a side eye to behold at the office door. When we moved, however, that was a whole different story. Forty two boxes of books did not endear my father to my mother, though the moving guys almost rubbed their hands together with glee. 

At the new house, the boxes sat and moldered in the garage while “new” books were strewn on the coffee table. It seemed the cycle would be unbroken. When I came back from college for summer break I had to fend for myself each dinnertime. I sorted through cookbooks and threw up my hands, because there was nothing I wanted to make unless I smothered myself with desserts. So I improv-ed it. Fresh red snapper? Sure, with a raspberry vinaigrette sauce. Or chicken alfredo with once frozen green beans. American food. Easy to remember and make food. After awhile I got bored with my own cooking and turned to online recipes. I made a killer cinnamon banana bread, that was poured into cupcake tins, because a loaf was too fragile. I also consumed copious amounts of tea. Tea drinking is a great indication of mood, because it has less caffeine, thus I had more sleep to make me less grumpy.

Some nights my mom worked so late I would put the leftovers into plastic tupperware. Part of cooking for another person is knowing their likes and dislikes. My mom hated mushrooms, and if I was feeling somewhat malicious, I would use cream of mushroom soup in the base ingredients. Most often though, I would make a baked potato,some sort of beef- usually skillet cooked, and have a wild experiment with the vegetable. The only one who would eat garlic and soy braised bok choy was me though. My most successful dinner was white wine baked pork chops, which took the least amount of attention because everything was left in the oven for two hours.

When I went back to college, my cooking dropped off a cliff and my mother switched to frozen dinners. I haven’t cooked in more than three months, and I know from experience my skills tend to deteriorate. When I’m on my own for study abroad in Rome, I figure I’ll have a month learning curve to recalibrate myself to cooking, but the abundance of good restaurants will probably be a hindrance to my skills. Why make something terrible if you can buy something better? Money, which tends to be the universal answer. If you can’t make a cake, Duncan Hines is a good place to start. Also, let’s talk about refrigeration. Americans have large freezers, we know this. My father has a Kenmore laydown one in the garage. Most families believe in having a few frozen emergency meals around as a time saver. If not meals, then out of season fruits, or large quantities of meat. We freeze bread in my house so it doesn't go stale or mold before we finish a loaf. The only other person I know to do this is my bachelor uncle. I’m sure there are jokes about the atomic age somewhere in there.

Food is a large part of home life, whether good, bad or in between. To travel is to expand those experiences. To go to Italy, to Canada, to anywhere really that’s outside one’s culture and then attempt to carve out a place through food is about belonging. Look, for example, at America’s foodscape. We have everything from Chinese to Jamaican to Greek. People who have come here have brought their food with them. Food is about memory too, so don’t be afraid to throw big dinner parties. Make everyone you know bring a dish that’s special to their family. And if you have to resort to a cookbook? I won’t tell a soul.