She made Pizza and Finished a Sweater February 26, 2008

I made dough, out of spelt flour, and used pasta sauce I made earlier in the week, topped with homemade Mozzarella!  YUMMM!  While this is moderately exciting, anyway, the fact that I made all the components myself, is amazing.  I do not, as a general rule, cook.

A little background, if you’re interested:  My husband and I were married 3 months after starting work at a group home for abused and neglected girls.  We were engaged when we took the positions, and our longest break in the three years we were there was our 1 week of wedding pre, followed by 2 weeks of honeymoon.  We loved working with the girls, and it was a very significant experience in many ways.  How does this have anything to do with the fact I don’t cook?

Well, at the group home, where we lived 24/7, was a chef.  The extent of my cooking was some fun baking activities on the weekends with the girls, heating up casseroles already prepared, and an occasional weekend crockpot meal.  Sure it was for 12-14 people, but it was simply putting the list of ingredients left by the cook into the pot and waiting…

When we were not working (which wasn’t often) we ate at friends houses, or out to dinner.  After leaving there, we had been married 3 years, and I had not really cooked dinner…then we were a couple, alone in the house, we could eat what we wanted and could come and go as we pleased…we ate out a lot, at friends and families homes (since we hadn’t had much time for visiting over the past 3 years)…still no need to learn how to cook.

Then we moved to our current home, next to my parents…were we ate a lot for the first 2 years of living here…along with continuing to eat out.

(Incidentally, my mom is the kind of gal that can open the fridge…grab a group of seemingly unrelated random foods, some from previous meals, some in their raw original state, and after a whir of brief activity, fill plates with tasty, healthy, creative meals…This is evidently a skill learned by watching her mother…I guess I was watching TV, for I did not glean any of her abilities while growing up and still have no idea how she works her magic.  I only surpass her in the ability to use a broiler to cook steak perfectly, and to cook veggies to the crisp green state…while hers are generally overcooked and a tad mushy…buy, hey, even Superman has his Kryptonite..mom had to have some cooking weakness, right?)

For the past couple years I’ve had spurts of “cooking”, but mostly we’ve been eating simple frozen food items.

Why the change, from city gal with the take out numbers on speed dial, to homemade pizza crust, sauce and mozzarella?  I’ve read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle…am reading Omnivore’s Dilemma and we have a baby girl.  How am I supposed to teach table manners and a sense of family meal times if we are not eating meals together?  So, the big questions…how long will this last?  Will making dinner become my favorite daily craft project?  Will I learn how to cook a variety of foods?  Will I become regimented enough to make dinner, and eat as a family every night…or at least most of them?  Those are the goals…along with the desire to have a productive food garden in my yard that produces enough wholesome vegetables to feed my family, at least most of the year…as I’m very open to going to farmers market for the things, like corn on the cob, that I likely don’t have enough room for.

I like to do things large, if I’m going to do them…now to get over my trauma of gardening…story for another day…

I’m now going to tease you, my cyber friend, with the fact I have finished my Tangelo sweater, and will have pictures tomorrow.  I LOVE IT!  It fits great, it came out fabulous, and the shape is very flattering on my full figure.   I have a new project, or two I’m starting, on the needles, that I’ll share tomorrow as well.