I'm Cookin', Yes Indeed I'm Cookin'...

Yesterday I tried to cook. Again.

"Tried" being the operative word here.

Mind you, I do know how to use a microwave and make (some) stuff on a stovetop. And pop in ready-made chicken legs and salmon fillets in the oven. That's what I did in London for a year, but I gained 15 pounds because of it. Not healthy.

I can steam vegetables so thats healthy. And heat up soup.

Har-har. I am a horrible cook.

When I cook, I need to follow a recipe. I can't just know a recipe off by heart. Apparently, my mother tells me I am a horrible cook so that just makes me more nervous. And Mel is the golden child of the kitchen (thanks to his mother who is an amazing cook) so he just laughs at me. Not very constructive here! My mom hates cooking and she told me that, so I did not learn much from her in that particular department in my formative years, being high school (ha ha). So what did I do in my senior year?

Signed up for cooking class as an elective. My high school has a Culinary Arts program that gets students into the CIA (Culinary Institute of America, not the Central Intelligence Agency) and to positions at Le Cirque. I wanted to learn the basics and a few recipes. I learned how to cut an onion properly, and that a recipe is a really good thing to have.

So what did I make yesterday?

Chicken, baked with olive oil and lemon juice. I was afraid that the chicken was undercooked so I overcooked the chicken and made it a bit dry. I remedied that with some more lemon juice. Made Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco treat!) to go with it - herb flavor - and it was a bit salty for me (Mel quite liked it) so I added lemon juice to cut the salty flavor.

I think that will be my cooking mantra - when in doubt, use lemon juice.

And for dessert, apple pie with vanilla ice cream: apple pie a la mode. I did not make the pie from scratch, are you kidding me? That's a weekend job. Stole some Mr. Softee ice cream from my freezer upstairs and took it into Mel's apartment in the basement downstairs.

So I am cooking in the downstairs apartment and I used like a million knives because unlike Mel - who had etiquette courses and knows which knife cuts which - I don't know a paring knife from a steak knife. I used a butcher knife to "butterfly" the chicken cutlets; at least I know how to do THAT. It's a really good butcher knife, Mel got it from IKEA and even his mother liked it and she knows knives. His mom makes EVERYTHING from scratch. I need to learn how to make her chicken adobo, that is one Philippino dish I like.

That's another thing to add: when in doubt, use a butcher knife.

My mother decides to visit me and see how I am doing:

"Lower the flame, ALWAYS keep a low flame."
"What's that burning smell? MARIA! You forgot to take out the broiler pan!!!! ALWAYS CHECK THE ENTIRE STOVE!!!"

I get NERVOUS when I have people watching over me! I didn't burn down the dorm in London so I am quite fine thank you! Geez, having my mother watch me cook is like when my father stands over my mother's shoulder when she is at the stove. Whenever he does that to either of us, we tell him that he is not in the Army anymore and no longer a captain and we are NOT your underlings so quit it.

He was the commander of a paratrooper group so he had to watch everything. As I mentioned previously, he is a slob but has good manners and is neat when the time [i.e. being in a military bunker, but that was the 70s] call for it - he had to take etiquette classes during officer's training; they stuck books under his armpits and he had to hold it in place so he can learn how to hold a knife and fork properly. So every so often we have to remind him to stop looking over our shoulders like he is going to give us a citation for dusty boots.

Which means that I have two men who have more etiquette than my mother, me and my maternal grandmother put together (And mind you, my maternal grandmother is mostly all about following Emily Post's etiquette book, the Greek edition [if there was one]. She is always telling me to "Sit straight and be a lady."). Mel even once suggested that I take etiquette courses at the Harvrd Club, but I wasn't 21 at the time so I couldn't partake due to the wine portion of it.

So I forgot to take out the broiler pan which led to a burst of smoke from the stove. Bah. I like the broiler. I can make a kick-arse strip steak (with Montreal steak seasonings of course) with a broiler.

This is what I can do - nominally. I can make pasta, chicken and steak. I think the toughest part will be fish. And I have to learn fish and learn it fast.

Either that or I will be eating a real college student's diet: ramen.