Let’s go back to summer of 1993. The song of the summer was UB40’s remake “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,” Snoop Dogg was still smoking w**d, not turkeys with Martha Stewart, Will Smith was the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Jurassic Park had just hit the theaters and my mom, sister and I moved to New Jersey.
My mom was a nurse and since she was new, she often had to work irregular hours. My dad, who was a soldier, was in the midsts of possibly being deployed to Bosnia so he had to stay in Missouri where he was stationed to train. That meant it was up to me to take care of myself and my little sister while Mom was at work. Thus I became an expert at ordering pizza or Chinese, not to mention that at least once a week, my mom would roll us through the Drive Thru of some fast food chain before heading off to work. I can honestly say that I ate more Little Cesar’s Crazy Bread in one month than most people will eat in their entire lives. #nobrag
Now before this new job, mom always cooked for us. She made good food, but she didn’t enjoy cooking. To her, it was a chore, something she had to do. So it was pretty easy for her to justify feeding us a steady diet of fast food, TV dinners, and takeout while she worked 12 to 18-hour shifts to keep food in our tummies and a roof over our head. And you must remember, this was the 90s. No one was talking about grass-fed beef or organic veggies yet. So, for the first six months after we arrived, I was eating the equivalent of a teenager’s dream which was basically: eat whatever you want, whenever you want.
But then I started to get sick of it. Eating reheated pizza and Chinese food for months on end wore on my taste buds. Burgers and fries no longer held their same appeal and even my favorite dinner, Philly Cheesesteaks begin to taste salty and greasy. And I wasn’t feeling that great, despite the fact my high metabolism (which slowed down the instant I turned 25).
One night after getting our umpteenth pizza from Little Cesears, I’d had enough.
“I’m tired of eating this kind of food,” I said to my mom, in my typical overdramatic tantrum. “I want some vegetables!"
Now you have to understand that I’m complaining my food choices to my mom who has barely slept four hours and is about to go back to work another shift. I imagine that at the time, she kind of wanted to ring my neck and honestly, who could blame her. I was the epitome of an ungrateful teenager.
But she didn’t do any of those things.
“You want vegetables? Cook them yourself."
I wasn’t expecting her to say that. I’m not sure what I was hoping for her to say.
“I don’t know how to cook."
“So go get a cookbook."
So I did.
I went to the library the next day after school and picked up the first cookbook I saw. Betty Crocker’s 40th Year Anniversary Cookbook to be exact.
And I read it. Cover to cover.
After I finished, I decided that I too could make a home cooked meal for my family. I attempted to make what I thought would be simple, meatloaf and mashed potatoes with corn. How hard could it be? I had seen my mom do it a bunch of times.
Apparently not enough times because the meal was an utter failure. My meatloaf was dry, hard as a rock and tasteless. My potatoes were stiff and lumpy and gooey, probably because I had cheated and substituted instant mashed potatoes instead of using real ones as Betty told me. (Again, instant potatoes were BIG in the 90s).
You know what though, my mom, sweet angel that she is, ate my meatloaf. She poured a ton of ketchup on it, but she ate it and lied to my face and told me it was good but it just needed some more salt and maybe less time in the oven. And even though she probably ate that meatloaf because she was tired and didn’t want to waste money by throwing it out, watching my mom eat my food awakened something inside of me.
I learned three lessons from that meal.
First, salt your food before you cook it. It just tastes better.
Second, people are grateful when you cook for them, even if your cooking sucks.
Third and most importantly, cookbooks have the power to transform your life.
When you embark upon a cookbook, it’s more than just a set of instructions. Between those pages is the chance to hang out with someone who loves food as much you do. You get to look into the mind of a chef, peek behind the curtain of your favorite restaurant, or just simply get to know someone by what recipes they choose to share. When you share food with me, or you invite me into your kitchen, you are sharing more than just a meal. You are sharing a piece of your heart.
That’s why I chose to name my blog BFF with the Chef. When I read a cookbook, it’s like I’m becoming friends with that author. That chef decided to share her knowledge with me. She or he could have kept it to themselves, but there is something innate about food that makes people want to share it. If you think about it, cookbooks are just a more efficient way for someone to say "hey, you loved my tahini dressing? OMG, it’s so easy to make, let me write that down for you! I’m thrilled that you loved it."
You’d give your best friend your recipe for tahini dressing, right? Of course, you would! It’s like when I brag about buying a shirt on sale for three bucks after someone tells me it looks like I paid a hundred for it. People WANT to share knowledge. It’s just part of who we are as human beings.
So let’s hang out and read cookbooks and cook together. I am continually getting inspiration from cookbooks, restaurants and food publications, but I also tend to remix things because that's how all recipes evolve. When I do a remix, I’ll tell you about it so that you can try it and see if that works for you.
Follow me on Instagram or check out my Youtube page. And of course you can email me with thoughts, cookbook suggestions and other bits of cooking-related information. I love it all.
Thanks for stopping by and Happy Cheffing.
