I cooked dinner this week. THREE whole times in four days (I might tonight – I’ve still got a little time to become inspired). For most people this is not any sort of feat or accomplishment: nothing to make a pin-on button out of. Some folks cook all the time – fresh meals every day! Chefs – they manage to make LOTS of meals for people other than them. True, they have cool knives and a pot rack and fresh herbs, but still: LOTS of meals.

This has never been an occurance in my life (correction: my life *outside* of my parents’ home. You wouldn’t seriously think that my proper Southern Mother would not prepare a fresh breakfast, lunch, and dinner almost daily, now would you? For shame). I tend to “piece-meal” things together – wheat thins/cream cheese/grapes, meat/cheese/tortilla, toast/cottage cheese, frozen veggies/tofu/teriyaki sauce. One year in college my roommate and I would just get in the car every night and drive until we found a place that spoke to our digestive systems: sometimes we ended up ten minutes away from home, sometimes we ended up two hours away at the beach (mmmm, Mo’s: and we were home in time to watch “Friends“).

Once the Hubby and I got married, dinner consisted of this:

• Do you want to go out, or get take out?
• Do you want breakfast, lunch, or dinner?
• Do you want coffee or not?
• Do you want to stay in town or not?

Lots of decisions much like a chef, but not so much with the dirty dishes. Then I stopped working and we procreated: good-bye personal chefs, hello figuring out what to do for ourselves. Then the conversation consisted of this: I want tofu and veggies – what are you going to have? Because our tastes generally don’t agree. Some folks might rough it out to find foods they like in common: being hormonal and sleep-deprived, we decided to keep the peace and do our own thing. We ate together, but the range of cuisine might vary from German Pancake to turkey wraps, Eggos and cottage cheese to cereal, a fried egg and sourdough to a veggie scramble with low-carb bread.

Then enter the child. Who could care less about his furry pal Grover but jerked his head around anytime the tv played the intro to “Everyday Italian.” Rachael Ray is known as “Auntie Rachael” in our household for a reason. JJ has always wanted to be part of the cooking action. His early dinners were spent strapped into a front carrier, being bounced over a steaming wok. He then moved to being bounced in his bouncy chair as folks walked back and forth between the fridge and the stove. He now likes to pull up a prop (a step stool, an upside down rubbermaid tub, his rocking chair) to stand level with the counter and “help us out.” Needless to say, it’s best to keep dinner preparations as quick and simple so as to minimize the time with our toddler sous chef.

But this week, I was inspired. I don’t know if it’s that my latest issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine came in the mail. Maybe it’s that JJ hasn’t been going down for a nap until three, and I get bored from 4-5, so cooking is “something” to do to kill the time. Maybe it’s that I miss the Food Network and the only way I can get my quotient of Paula Deen “mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm!” yummy noises in my week is to make them myself. At any rate, I cooked dinner. And they were good.

Monday I made enchiladas, and Hubby liked them (my previous attempts weren’t so hot). Tuesday I made my own version of Huevos Racheros (saute tomato with salt, freshly ground black pepper, Italian seasonings/mix 1.5 cup of egg beaters with mozzarella, garlic powder, minced onions, and mustard powder/scramble/throw on a side of toast with Splenda and cinnamon and light butter/mmmmm).

But Thursday – Thursday I got cocky. I can make dinner! I don’t need a recipe! And JJ had woken up early. But I can do this – I am the empowered cook!

I am the dumb cook. My mom called and got to hear all of the fun details while they were happening. So, while on the phone I:

• decided to just whip up some sort of veggie/tofu/peanut sauce dish – my own creation. Except I only stirfry frozen veggies usually. But I had fresh veggies who were about to turn to the dark side. So I chopped up some broccoli, onion, mushrooms, and green peppers and threw them in the wok.

• had to get the gianormous wok out of the back of the cupboards. Because I’m one of those people who read Real Simple’s article on organizing your kitchen, make the “ooh, how pretty!” noises, and promptly throw it in the recycling bin because I need to go dig for that steamer that’s hidden “somewhere.”

• tripped on the step stool that JJ had pushed over behind my back. Slid on the magnetic letters he had thrown on the floor (you know, those cute magnetic letters that you buy thinking, “Oh, this will be fun for them!” But not fun for you. Not fun at all when the “N” is gouged between your third and fourth toes, and the “H” is imprinted into your heel). Slipped on the family pictures that were being held up by the letters and other magnets (they had been out of reach until the step stool had been brought out).

• started making noodles for the hodge podge suburban asian dish (suburban in that the peanut sauce was from cooking light). Except I had to break the noodles into bits because I forgot to get a wide pot.

• stepped on the dog over. . . .and over . . . and over because the dog had commenced in his licking-of-the-floor-particularly-concentrating-on-the-hard-to-reach-places-which-are-mostly-located-by-the-oven-and-fridge (i.e. right where I was moving/stirring/slipping and tripping). I love having a dog: he’s a built-in floor cleaner. Seriously, my floors have never been cleaner. Toddler crumbs: gone! Flour dust: like it never existed. That piece of veggies I dropped: what piece of veggies? But being an efficient pup, he tends to clean while I cook lest he have to work nights.

• forgot about the boiling water – mess.

• recognized that my kitchen was on fire. Well, my burner was on fire: the wok burner was flaming. Literally. Flame-broiled tofu. So I started hopping around commenting on how my kitchen was on fire but assuring my mother that I could indeed continue to talk to her, except what do I do to make the fire go away? Water’s no good: I faintly remembered something about flour smothering a fire. Except when I flung flour on the flames, the flour ended up more on the burner than the fire, i.e. giving the burner something else to burn. Finally I blew, trying to balance the wok and not blow my mother’s ear off. I felt like I was in one of those asthma commercials where they do the breath test. That, or a breath mint commercial gone horribly wrong.

• stirred things. Tried to figure out how to grate ginger and talk.

• shared with mom about how I had a good Bible study class, but I was dumb and said the fatal phrase: “Any questions?” and someone asked me in regards to the “thy will be done on earth as it already is done in heaven” how that relates to “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” and tried to answer by pointing out that I was the least qualified person to answer that (in case I was wrong), but that I might know a little something (so that they wouldn’t think: um, why am I taking this class other than that the other class is taught by a very large haired, pointy woman on a video?).

• blew out another fire from the new wok burner – apparently it can’t handle the big heat, or I never use more than one burner, or both – while saying, “well, I think Christ meant (blow) that we’d be responding to what’s (blow) already happening in heaven, not that we’d (blow) be acting like God, but I don’t (blow) know.”

• tried to wrestle away the knife from my son who had moved the step stool over to the cutting board and was happily sous chefing by slicing mushrooms with the ginormous serated knife.

• tripped on the dog again.

• stopped using measuring cups with my sauce and figured if it had enough peanut butter and garlic that it’d be edible.

• tried to grate carrots into the wok and throw in the noodles which I forgot to set the timer for because I was being a firefighter and stir in the sauce and reassure my mother than indeed I am not a good cook: I am just insane.

So. That is why I do not cook. At least, I shouldn’t cook and talk, at least until JJ is in grade school when I’m sure he’ll be in every peewee league possible and gone in the evenings.  It will be for all of our safety, really: I can’t imagine it’d be good to see him with a food processor.

Daily Drivel, JJ Jawings