Dinner anyone?
by Brianna Walker
by Brianna Walker
I really like food. I love smelling food, I love buying food and I love eating food. I don’t however enjoy cooking food. Most of my friends know I made it though college on popcorn, V8 and Saturday night dinner dates. My time in the kitchen is best spent canning, cleaning, or doing art projects on the table. My cooking fiascos started early in life. After making a few batches of “oreo” cookies (black on the outside, gooey in the middle), my family began comparing my cooking results with Elly May’s biscuits off the Beverly Hillbillies. I can turn a ball of cookie dough to a briquette faster than Lisa Douglas could bubble up one of her hotcakes Oliver uses to reshingle their Hootersville shack.

I must say I come by it naturally though. I recall a time my grandma tried her hand at a “dump casserole.” A casserole where you dump in whatever happens to be in your fridge. Well, my grandma, bless her heart, took it too literally. Lettuce and peanut butter stand glommed together as she scraped the inedible goo into the dog dish. I think the dog ate out that night. I know we did.

I like to bake, but that day to day cooking is a struggle for me. Although, now that with a little boy in the house, I feel obligated to feed him more than popcorn. So lately I’ve been making daily excursions to the kitchen. Unfortunately, the kitchen is close to 3 smoke detectors, which my husband affectionately refers to as my oven timers. Hopefully in case of a real fire, the family will head outside and not to the table.

I’m just waiting for the day my 3 year old heads outside to make mud pies and the rest of the family take their forks and follow. But there are upsides, relatives don’t stay any longer than necessary, friends invite us to make the dinner mess at their house, and I can get even with anyone--with only a “home cooked meal” and a smile.