I’m an average cook, and I like cooking, but mainly because I get to eat home-cooked food at the end of the exercise. Hit-and-miss might be a good way to describe my kitchen exploits, but I'd give anything a go, and if it didn’t work I’d shrug it off and pull out some pre-packaged processed glop, like ‘Easy Mac’, which I’d enjoy anyway.
However, over the last few months, I’ve had a Crisis of Cooking Confidence. It started the day my oven went psycho, ‘my oven’ being our ex-landlord’s oven, and our ex-landlord being Mr. Never-Fix-It.
On that fateful day, my oven - an unpredictable rebel who’d always lived by his own rules - decided black was the new golden brown and turned my lasagne to charcoal within minutes and set the smoke detectors howling.
It became a tumultuous relationship from then on, and many burnt muffins, blackened casseroles and embarrassing hosting moments later, I knew he wasn't good for me, but I just couldn't walk away.
He even started coming between me and my friends. Example: One day when a pal dropped by for lunch, I made his favourite pasta dish (see recipe for The Best Pasta Bake in the World), but five minutes after putting it in the oven, the smell of burning filled the house, and when I opened the oven door, I saw black. When the black smoke cleared out of my eyes, I saw more black. When I pulled the pasta bake out of the oven, I realised the black was the top of the pasta bake. It wasn't a pasta bake, it was a pasta incinerate.
He had become a monster.
If you're familiar with Disney's Beauty and the Beast, recall the scene where the mob is storming the castle and the oven rears up out of the shadows with burners blazing.
Eventually I knew I had to leave what I realised was really just an investment-property-quality appliance with no long-term prospects. I made do with unsatisfactory stovetop cooking and meaningless takeaway for some months. Was it him? Was it me? I became a vulnerable shadow of my former confident, average-but-jolly-cook self.
Finally I became strong enough to walk away. We moved on, into our brand new home, where I met my new, middle-of-the-range oven named Simpson. I flipped nervously through my cookbooks then ordered takeaway for the whole first week. It was only through watching my husband bake a perfect batch of delicate meringues that I felt like I was ready to learn to trust again...
Today I baked a batch of Anzacs, just like in the good ol’ days, as a thank you gift for someone who did us a favour:
Looks like the start of a beautiful friendship.
2 Thoughts:
Yeah! I can't wait to eat lasagna Julie style. So when should we come over?
Audacity win!
I might even have to make it an Ultra Lasagne. Don't ask, just prepare to experience.
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