The Susan Sequel

My grandmother was a horrible cook. Don’t get me wrong, she was an amazing person and I loved spending time with her, but it certainly wasn’t for her cooking abilities (maybe the tangerine lifesavers she always carried, but not for her home cooked meals).  I know, that as a Jewish girl, this is a bit of an anomaly; my friends all wax poetically about their grandmother’s brisket, kugel and matzoh ball soup. Not here… my grandmother made beautiful holidays, but they were never about the food. My holiday memories don’t involve anything edible but include family, laughter and divisive political discussions (clearly, not much has changed through the years). Sadly (or not), the family cooking tradition carried down to her daughter, my beloved mother.

While she may dispute this, my mother is not the greatest of cooks; however, not for her lack of trying. Until I purchased my first married home (when she gladly passed the spatula), my mother cooked every holiday and created a home filled with warmth and memories. Regardless of this, she was not a good cook and at age 13, my family started eating every meal out. Let me clarify this for you; when I say every meal, I mean every meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner). We rotated between a variety of local restaurants and became personal friends with all the hostess and wait staff at each venue (they not only knew our orders, they knew when I made the honor roll or broke up with a boyfriend). To be honest, our lives seemed perfectly normal and we didn’t mind the arrangement. Meals were at a certain time and we could be there or not, it wasn’t mandatory attendance.  If we chose not to go, we were on our own (there were always groceries in the house, I lived on microwave popcorn for a while and my sister ate toasted cheese sandwiches for about a year).

You may be asking WHY my family started eating every meal out? If you ask my mom, she will tell you it’s because 1) she hated cooking and 2) she was sick of the phone ringing every night during dinner (I had an icky friend at the time who always called at dinner time, even though I asked her not to).  The situation made perfect sense to us: when we ate out, we were together for at least a solid hour, with no interruptions or distractions (we could have also taken the phone off the hook but that’s a whole different story). However, when I look back on it as an adult, I believe she stopped cooking because we made so much fun of her kitchen skills (or lack thereof) that she refused to do it unless it was a holiday. Look, I’m not going to deny that we tortured her just a little over her questionable culinary abilities. However, I don’t know what she expected when she served us cottage cheese and fruit for dinner (the fruit was canned fruit cocktail), open-faced roast beef sandwiches (deli roast beef on white bread with canned gravy) and liver & onions (I’m actually gagging as I write this). Needless to say, I survived my childhood and was clearly well-fed (as my current scale likes to remind me).

Therefore, it won’t surprise anyone to know that when I met Frank, my cooking abilities only extended to scrambled eggs and toast. In fact, Frank gladly tells everyone that when we met, I cooked dinner for him and burned the Rice-A-Roni (even my mother could make that without burning it). Raised Italian, Frank had been cooking since he was a kid and decided he was going to enlighten me (I guess he planned on me feeding our kids one day and wanted me to do it without harming them).  Believe it or not, I actually listened to him and heeded his advice (don’t give him too much credit, I also learned how easy it was to follow the recipes in my numerous cookbooks). Soon enough, I was making full meals, all the holidays and cooking for our kids. I learned to bake and can even make some mean desserts (Frank doesn’t really eat sweets so this doesn’t come in handy very often).  However, as my kids have gotten older, I realized that, with the exception of the holidays, I don’t particularly like to cook either (Mom, wipe that smile off your face). I spend hours shopping, prepping and cleaning up, only to eat in 15 minutes. And while I still try to cook when everyone is around, I absolutely prefer going out and sitting down as a family for quality, uninterrupted time (obviously, what goes around comes around).

I think my family’s motto should be: you are what you eat. Not in the literal sense, but rather in the way that we eat. As my kids have gotten older, I’ve realized that what matters isn’t so much what they eat but how (and with whom) they eat. And whether my kids remember me for my cooking or for what restaurant we ate at doesn’t much matter to me anymore, as long as they know that meals mean family and time spent together (Sam did spent the year leading up to his Bar Mitzvah eating every meal in the car so I don’t know how well this theory holds up). I will continue to cook family dinners (I actually don’t love going out all the time so until Frank hires me a personal chef, there aren’t too many other options) and I will continue to always host holiday dinners (no matter how much work they involve, I can honestly say that I LOVE doing each and every one of them).

And I hope that my kids remember some of our family’s own dinner fails. There was the first Thanksgiving that I cooked in a new home; I didn’t realize the oven racks were slanted and, when I opened the door, the piping hot tray of stuffing came flying out at me and shattered all over the floor (my guests were horrified and asked to pick the stuffing out of the glass; don’t worry, I thought about it but didn’t let them). Or the Passover Seder held before I purchased real dining room furniture. The folding table I was using as a buffet collapsed mid meal and the ENTIRE dinner, brisket and all, slid (without one dish breaking) gracefully across my wood floors. I think I actually enjoy these stories more than the meals themselves.

On a final note, I have been considering purchasing an air fryer (for someone who doesn’t love cooking, I do love the gadgets associated with it… Homegoods is my own personal Mecca). I have one friend who loves hers and one friend who just decided that hers was going back to the store. And, while I have no idea what I would actually do with an air fryer, it sounds like a fun toy that might make cooking easier for me (or is it just one more thing to clean up)? Have any of you used one? What about an instant pot (if it’s like a slow cooker, don’t bother; my kids hate anything from the crock pot and want me to turn it into a fancy planter). What do you think? Marinate on it….