I Don’t Know How to Cook

I don’t know how to cook.

This might sound strange given the fact that I’m a 59 year-old woman, but it’s true. I’m not exaggerating. The only things I know how to make are grilled cheese, scrambled eggs and boiling pasta. That’s the extent of my cooking experience.

I’m a picky eater which is a vast improvement from the extremely picky eater I was as a child. I only ate a handful of foods so I was never interested in what my mother was doing in the kitchen just as long as she was preparing something I would eat. After college, when I ventured out on my own for the first time, I lived on frozen dinners, take out and coincidentally stopping by my mom’s house around dinner time. I was very happy with this arrangement and had zero desire to learn to become self-sufficient when it came to preparing my meals.

In my late twenties I met Gary (my now deceased husband). I shared a story in a letter I wrote to him after his death during his funeral of how he came to discover that I did not cook.

Here’s an excerpt:

I finally won you over when you offered to come and fix my dryer in exchange for a home cooked meal.

The only problem was that I didn’t cook. No, really, I don’t know how to cook at all.

Naturally, I went to my mother to ask how the heck I was going to pull this off. She told me to buy some chicken, apricot sauce, rice and string beans. The cooking instructions she gave me seemed fairly easy and I was slightly confident I might actually be able to do this.

You arrived on a Saturday afternoon with your tool box in hand. I heard a lot of banging coming from the other room while I was in the kitchen covering the chicken in the apricot sauce. I went in to check on you after a while when you hadn’t come out. I thought you might be on to me and were afraid you might end up with food poisoning.

You did eventually get the dryer working and we began to share a bottle of wine as dinner was cooking in the kitchen. I was really starting to feel good about the whole situation. The scene was picture perfect right out of a movie.

It was perfect until you asked if I smelled smoke.

By this time, I had drunk a glass of wine or two and had forgotten that I was even cooking at all. You went into the kitchen and saw that the chicken was burning. You then took a look at the rice and asked me if I had added the seasoning. Seasoning? I didn’t even know I was supposed to do that.

In a matter of minutes, we each learned quite a bit about one another. You surmise from the way I was just standing there wearing a puzzled look on my face that I had absolutely no idea how to cook. Luckily for me, I learned that you did know your way around the kitchen. Not only did you know your way around, but you were actually an accomplished cook.

And so for the next almost 30 years, Gary cooked for our family.

He was very particular about everything to do with food and our kitchen so I was happy to let him do his thing and never had an interest in learning what or how he was buying and preparing such delicious food. Once he became ill and was unable to cook, we reverted back to my earlier habits of surviving on frozen dinners and take out.

Now that Gary is gone, it’s time. It’s time for me and my boys to learn how to feed ourselves. My friend Leslie, who is not only a fantastic cook but also very kind and patient, gave us our first lesson. She took us to the store and pointed out different foods, some prepared, some not, and explained how we could use these items to quickly make a delicious meal for ourselves. She came home with us and demonstrated how to cut an onion and pepper and quickly threw together a dish with them.

My next step was to purchase an air fryer along with a beginner guide cookbook. So far, we have made cheeseburgers, scallops and vegetables. This week we are trying steak and chicken wings. Little by little, we’re learning to feed ourselves and we are beginning to feel both proud and capable.

For the first time in my life, I’m starting to understand how people gain a sense of satisfaction when eating something yummy they’ve prepared.

My entire life I believed I couldn’t cook when in fact I just didn’t want to learn how to cook. There’s a big difference between the two. Life is now forcing me to change the story I’ve been telling myself. My life and circumstances had created this limiting belief and I believed it.

Over the last few years, I’ve begun to uncover other beliefs that I have that I just assumed were true. Thoughts and ideas become so ingrained in our minds that we don’t think to question their validity. What belief do you have about yourself that isn’t true? In order to learn the truth, you need to be honest with yourself. I hadn’t been willing to do it when it came to my belief around my cooking prowess or lack thereof.

Gary left me a gift.

The realization that I can actually cook when I try. I’ll make a lot of mistakes, but mistakes are just all part of the learning process. The best part is that when I’m in my kitchen, Gary’s kitchen, I feel closest to him. You just never know how your world will change when you begin to examine your beliefs.

Until next time, 

Debbie