When people ask me what got me into cooking, I have really only three people to blame: my mother, my best friend, and the inventor of Pinterest. As soon as I was old enough to read a measuring cup, my mother enlisted me as a miniature sous chef to scoop and level dry ingredients, peel vegetables, and whisk sauces. Still too short to comfortably reach the stovetop, I had to perch on a stepstool in order to stir. Every so often, my mother would pause whatever she was doing to remind me to scrape the bottom of the pan or rinse the potatoes.
In this way, I learned many of the fundamentals of cooking, and when she changed jobs my 5th grade year, it fell to my culinarily hapless father, my older brother, and me to get dinner on the table. Guided by a box of stained recipe cards, we managed with only a few mishaps, although we eagerly returned the responsibility of making dinner back over to Mom a few years later following another job change. Only years later did I discover that, despite her ample capability in the kitchen, cooking was among her least favorite household chores.
Thanks to this time in the kitchen early in my life, I went into adolescence with several recipes already in my arsenal: chicken parmesan, pasta bake, tacos, and assorted muffins, cookies, and cakes, to name a few. At that point, I viewed cooking as little more than a necessity of survival, but during my sophomore year of high school, my perspective changed as a result of the convergence of two key events in my life: meeting my best friend and the advent of Pinterest.
I imagine that, when the typical fifteen-year-old girl starts getting to know her best friend, they spend a lot of time together at school or Starbucks or the mall. But given that we were a year apart in school, the nearest Starbucks was half an hour away, and the mall was even farther, we spent a lot of time at my house. A great deal of that time was spent browsing Pinterest. When we weren't planning our future weddings or searching for home decor, we drooled over recipes, especially the ones that involved Frank's Hot Sauce, bacon, or Nutella. Eventually, we started testing them for ourselves. There in my parents' kitchen, I discovered that cooking could be more than a necessity; it could be a joy, both for me as I cooked and for those who gathered around the table with me to eat.
Gradually, I started to assume responsibility for putting dinner on the table for our family of six, and my three brothers' enthusiastic responses kept both them and me coming back for more. I baked for my friends, for my mom's book club, for any social event in high school that required us to sign up for treats. To my great delight, people liked what I made. I kept cooking.
As I transitioned into college, I found myself facing more busyness and pressure than I ever had before. But on the nights when I stepped into the kitchen to make dinner, I could take a break from the stress of deadlines and busywork and do something for someone other than myself, even if that break only lasted as long as it took for my homemade breadsticks to rise. And soon, I had another eager taste-tester lined up: my new boyfriend, Mitchell. He couldn't cook to save his life, but he got pretty good at shredding parmesan cheese for me. As he was helping me with dinner one evening, he commented that he couldn't wait to make dinner together every night once we got married. We have yet to realize that vision (currently, I do the cooking and he cleans up after me), but I still thoroughly enjoy trying new recipes and breaking out old favorites for him just as much as I did when we were dating. Even though I wasn't sure how I'd adjust to cooking for two as opposed to six, I guess I did okay, because every time Mitchell blessed the food for the first several weeks after we got married, he thanked God that I was such a good cook.
And truly, I do love to cook, whether it's just for the two of us or for a larger audience of family and friends. It is so gratifying to be able to satisfy one of the most basic human needs, the need for food, in such a way that it brings happiness to that person as well. In the selection of ingredients, the preparation of a meal, the time around a table, I find tremendous joy. With that, my soul is full.
