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alexmegamiI've been thinking a lot about food, lately, and my relationships with it and my associations with it.
I mean, admittedly, mostly I've been thinking about making food. A lot of food. At one point this last week I wanted to make a four-course meal, plus dessert, and I DID make fake clotted cream and lemon curd and scones. Because I can't do something half-assedly.
I'll let you in on a non-secret: I am really fucking lazy. I am so fucking lazy that I will not make myself a sandwich to take to school, because the Subway is just up the street and only costs... $8 a pop (remember, I am an unemployed student). This causes my grandmother no small amount of consternation. (I don't eat there EVERY day, but often enough.)
Food has always been my #1 cost, unless someone else was paying for it (see also: Patrick's family feeding my ass almost all the way through university).
Part of the reason is, I never really learned how to cook. I can follow a recipe as well as the next person (usually - Patrick makes fun of me for sometimes adding too much liquid to things and winding up with mush when baking) but I'm not really experienced with spices or cooking methods. And I don't like stuff "plain" (or cold, a lot of the time).
The other thing is that in the land of picky eaters, my picky thing is grains. I'm not a fan of rice, pasta, bread; even potatoes are nice but not strictly necessary. This makes food planning difficult, because those "bulky" items that you eat as filler? Yeah, I don't really eat those. If it's sweet, that's a whole other story, but not really my thing as a savory dish.
And yet food is like this huge integral part of my (paternal) family's life. Dinner at Nonna's is a very important thing and there are specific days of the year that we kind of expect to go over and feast. (Christmas, birthdays, maybe Easter.) My cousin on that side does cakes. Her sister's partner also does food (I think maybe was a caterer at some point?). My aunt and Nonna are incredible cooks. My dad too. And his cousins - I can't imagine them NOT being good at cooking. Food is so tied up in, well, our cultural identity...
Except I grew up in an English/Canadian house. My maternal grandmother did Sunday roast beef dinner, and trifle on special occasions, but according to my mother, that was pretty much it. (I gather her dad did most of the cooking otherwise.) My stepfather's mother (the grandmother I live with)... let's say it's very meat and potatoes. It's an extremely heavy meat-and-carbs diet with very little greenery.
As for my family, I don't remember anyone ever doing a lot of cooking, except for our nannies. (Yeah, I had nannies. At first, my great-aunt and my grandmother, then actual live-in hired help. Until I was, hm, maybe 10?) But anything my parents made generally came from a box or from a restaurant.
I joke about how I make a terrible Italian. I don't like olives and pasta and bread are not high points for me. The truth is, though, that I feel like there's this whole food culture that I just do not get. Like everyone else [in my family] was raised knowing how to cook or bake, and I've kind of been left to my own devices to figure it out.
And because they have the basics, they can do the complicated! But I don't, but in an effort to prove myself while simultaneously learning, I have to do Big Stuff (four-course meal for a basic dinner). Not only do I have to do Big Stuff, it has to be food snobbery big stuff. Nothing as crass as mashed potatoes and steak. That is, as they say, Too Easy. If it's mashed potatoes and steak, it had better have ten steps to it and involve no fewer than seven ingredients. Each. (You may laugh, but I'm not kidding.)
And if I can't do that? Well, I'll just eat out. (To be honest, the one costs nearly the same as the other because I have to put in ALL THE EFFORT [clean *all* the things].)
Yeah, it's messed up. I'm.... working on it. But there is a reason my Bed Bath and Beyond wishlist is $12,000. Let me show you my unrealistic expectations.
I mean, admittedly, mostly I've been thinking about making food. A lot of food. At one point this last week I wanted to make a four-course meal, plus dessert, and I DID make fake clotted cream and lemon curd and scones. Because I can't do something half-assedly.
I'll let you in on a non-secret: I am really fucking lazy. I am so fucking lazy that I will not make myself a sandwich to take to school, because the Subway is just up the street and only costs... $8 a pop (remember, I am an unemployed student). This causes my grandmother no small amount of consternation. (I don't eat there EVERY day, but often enough.)
Food has always been my #1 cost, unless someone else was paying for it (see also: Patrick's family feeding my ass almost all the way through university).
Part of the reason is, I never really learned how to cook. I can follow a recipe as well as the next person (usually - Patrick makes fun of me for sometimes adding too much liquid to things and winding up with mush when baking) but I'm not really experienced with spices or cooking methods. And I don't like stuff "plain" (or cold, a lot of the time).
The other thing is that in the land of picky eaters, my picky thing is grains. I'm not a fan of rice, pasta, bread; even potatoes are nice but not strictly necessary. This makes food planning difficult, because those "bulky" items that you eat as filler? Yeah, I don't really eat those. If it's sweet, that's a whole other story, but not really my thing as a savory dish.
And yet food is like this huge integral part of my (paternal) family's life. Dinner at Nonna's is a very important thing and there are specific days of the year that we kind of expect to go over and feast. (Christmas, birthdays, maybe Easter.) My cousin on that side does cakes. Her sister's partner also does food (I think maybe was a caterer at some point?). My aunt and Nonna are incredible cooks. My dad too. And his cousins - I can't imagine them NOT being good at cooking. Food is so tied up in, well, our cultural identity...
Except I grew up in an English/Canadian house. My maternal grandmother did Sunday roast beef dinner, and trifle on special occasions, but according to my mother, that was pretty much it. (I gather her dad did most of the cooking otherwise.) My stepfather's mother (the grandmother I live with)... let's say it's very meat and potatoes. It's an extremely heavy meat-and-carbs diet with very little greenery.
As for my family, I don't remember anyone ever doing a lot of cooking, except for our nannies. (Yeah, I had nannies. At first, my great-aunt and my grandmother, then actual live-in hired help. Until I was, hm, maybe 10?) But anything my parents made generally came from a box or from a restaurant.
I joke about how I make a terrible Italian. I don't like olives and pasta and bread are not high points for me. The truth is, though, that I feel like there's this whole food culture that I just do not get. Like everyone else [in my family] was raised knowing how to cook or bake, and I've kind of been left to my own devices to figure it out.
And because they have the basics, they can do the complicated! But I don't, but in an effort to prove myself while simultaneously learning, I have to do Big Stuff (four-course meal for a basic dinner). Not only do I have to do Big Stuff, it has to be food snobbery big stuff. Nothing as crass as mashed potatoes and steak. That is, as they say, Too Easy. If it's mashed potatoes and steak, it had better have ten steps to it and involve no fewer than seven ingredients. Each. (You may laugh, but I'm not kidding.)
And if I can't do that? Well, I'll just eat out. (To be honest, the one costs nearly the same as the other because I have to put in ALL THE EFFORT [clean *all* the things].)
Yeah, it's messed up. I'm.... working on it. But there is a reason my Bed Bath and Beyond wishlist is $12,000. Let me show you my unrealistic expectations.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 07:06 am (UTC)May I recommend The Joy of Cooking? It does a great job explaining the basics, as well as encouraging experimentation and offering instructions for the more advanced stuff too. Truly a kitchen bible.
Also, have you asked anyone to help you with the basic stuff? Most people are happy to share their knowledge.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 10:03 pm (UTC)I have some basic cookbooks (not Joy but... Ummm... Mark Bitteman's Cooking for Everybody? That's from memory and may not be a correct title or name. :P) I just don't use them, preferring to go to the complicated Epicurious stuff first. Other people cooking simply is fine, it's just ME that can't do it. ;)
If we're doing something simple, it's usually Patrick or my parents making it. I've picked up *some* basics (I know a very easy quick soup recipe that is just complicated enough to pass my threshold), but I just find the basics... boring, I guess. :P
no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 11:10 am (UTC)What I do make for myself is sporadic, unhealthy, but usually quite tasty. (Like that thing with the chicken breasts in mushroom soup, with melted cheese on top...)
You can save yourself a lot of time and money if, when you do make meals, you make stuff that produces Large Batches with Lots Of Leftovers, which you can then grind through for a few days.
(Now you're inspiring me to start reading Allrecipes (http://allrecipes.com/) again.)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 10:09 pm (UTC)(Also my grandmother doesn't like me using her stove. Kraft Dinner requires her hovering and checking in on me every five minutes. So making food, let alone enough for leftovers, is... hard.)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 09:43 pm (UTC)Although tell Christoph he should teach me how to make his bread. Maybe then I might eat it. ;)