Many of my early attempts at cooking were a disaster. Just ask my poor guinea pig husband. (He still makes "squeak, squeak" noises when I tell him I've tried a new recipe.) Let me just say - the amount of paste he ate over the years while I tried to learn how to make gravy...well...it's amazing he was ever willing to try anything else.
Although I had made great attempts at learning to cook for the first couple of years of our marriage, the real catalyst came from necessity. About 12 years ago we relocated for Mike's new job, and almost immediately they cut his hours. Our food budget was $30 a week. (I'm sure we could have qualified for some kind of assistance, but to be honest, it never even occurred to us to apply.) Fortunately, food prices were much lower than they are now. We were also living in California, where the majority of America's food crops are grown (translation - cheaper produce.) At $10/week per person, I could no longer afford to buy pre-packaged food and had to learn to cook.
There was a great, albeit minuscule, library in town that I began to frequent. There was a decent selection of cookbooks, and unlike the last few places that we lived, most of the recipes didn't call for a can of this, or a package of that. There were recipes for real food.
Guess what? I finally figured out how to make good gravy! I learned how to make pancake batter that didn't involve Bisquick. I roasted my first chicken. There were plenty of missteps, as well. There were some foods that we had a really hard time giving up - like crackers, chips, and soda. Basically, the crap. It felt like a major sacrifice, especially for Mike, our resident Mountain Dew addict.
Even though I started cooking from scratch to ease the strain on our budget, it had an unintended side effect. Our son - who had been having certain health issues - got better. A LOT better. Hmm - we had taken him to doctors in 3 states, and not one of them ever mentioned that there could be a link between his diet and the problems he had been having. Although I wasn't sure what this meant, exactly, I was even more determined to keep cooking this way.
Coming soon, Part 3 - 2 steps forward, 1 step back.
Part 1 - In the Beginning
2 comments:
As the commercial said, "you've come a long way, baby!" ;) I love that while you were forced to cook due to budgetary constraints, you really embraced it and in turn "cured" Cody.
This reminds me that one of these days, I'll have to share my tale about how my mom learned to cook in her mid 30s and became an incredibly good one.
Happy 2012!
Tell me about it! And yes, please share the story about your mom. :)
Happy 2012 to you, too!
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