Oh Horror! she doesn't cook!!

I confessed to my friend who is a gourmet cook and is coming to visit for a few days that I don’t cook. After her initial surprize and my explanation as to why I didn’t cook, she graciously dismissed my concern and agreed it would be lovely to eat out one night and get nice take away the other.

Now it’s not really accurate that I don’t cook.  I am a whizz with the microwave although strictly speaking that’s more about heating and reheating, including nuking frozen dinners, warming heatpacks and hotting up coffee.  I also have a George Foreman Grill for grilling chops and steak, which I do less and less often.  I’m not exactly a vegetarian but I rarely these days eat red meat. In addition I have a deep fryer – also used less and less often these days.

In the old days as the saying goes I was a great cook.  General cooking of meals for our family of six for many years.  Plus baking – there I really shone.  Cakes and slices and pavlovas.  I was famous for my pavlovas.  I would whip up a batch  of four dozen patty cakes – half of which would be gone before they were cool enough to ice and the rest I would make into little butterfly cakes with homemade mock cream and icing sugar.  Slices like marshmallow slice and passionfruit slice and custard slice all went down famously with kids and friends alike. In addition I made great pancakes all from scratch – no packet mixes for me. 

When I was a young mum a group of us young mums who were neighbours, would play cards one night a week, taking turns holding the card night at each of our homes.  When it was my turn, I would spend most of the day baking slices etc. and we would spend less time playing cards than eating and chatting and laughing, and a good time was had by all.  I think these card nights kept us all sane for those early years. Later a different group of friends all living in different suburbs, would visit each other - kids in tow, to play canasta.  I used to take the pancake batter and make them up and serve them hot with butter and sugar and lemon juice –mmmmmmm. I would often make them for lunch for my kids when son RR was 4 years old.

All this was done on the basic electric standalone stove and oven. Just the dials to turn on and off and the temperature to set and knowing which shelf of the oven to use and how to tell when things were cooked. Unlike today with ovens that look like the command centre of the Starship Enterprise

Then I got out of the way of cooking for a number of reasons. One was that I was working in jobs that had me out until fairly late in the evening and R was off work for a couple of years after an accident.  He began to take up cooking as a hobby at first and then began to do much of the cooking of meals at night. Eventually as the kids left home and he was back at work which had him home by 4:30PM and I was often home at 8PM he became chief cook.  Also in the intervening years sweet things like cakes and slices went out of fashion and savoury treats came into fashion.

So not only did I get out of the habit of cooking much when R took over but now that I’m on my own, I can’t be bothered cooking for one.  Except at Xmas when the family comes and I traditionally do the big baked dinner. Now in this new kitchen of mine I have of course a new oven which has many different ways of cooking and is all electronic.  This was not the most complicated oven I could buy but still requires a degree to figure out how to work it and what settings to use.  So because I use it once or twice a year I never remember how it all goes and I have to look up the manual every time. Then disaster - Last Xmas I couldn’t find the manual. I discovered this  on Xmas morning. After an hour or so searching I gave up and winged it.  And to my surprize it all came out OK.  The girls think it’s hilarious that I have to look up the manual every time I use the oven.  OK for them they have the old fashioned type.

So I don’t really cook these days and I have a very bland palate. I’m not interested in gourmet food and the fact that I could turn the TV on at any time of the day or night and find a cooking show on one channel or another stuns me. But I have a healthy diet and these days I have to watch the calories.  So I have no intention of taking up cooking again.  I use the time I save not cooking and cleaning up after, in other productive and enjoyable ways.  To all of you out there who collect recipes and watch all the cooking shows and love cooking and experimenting I say go for it! Enjoy.  Me?  I’ll keep on being a not cook.