Things My Mother Has Taught Me: To Cook

     My mother is an excellent cook. I didn't fully come to this realization until my senior year of high school when I helped my mom plan and cook the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. There is so much more to being a good cook than the taste quality of the food! There's picking every dish that will be prepared based on the occasion, those attending (allergies, dislikes, favorites, etc.), availability at the store, the timing of cooking each dish, and how the dishes complement each other. Then there's the basic yet stressful task of bearing the craziness of a grocery store around the holidays to buy all the necessary ingredients. Next comes sitting down to plan out hour by hour when each dish needs to be prepared, when food needs to be put in and taken out of the over, stove, crock pot, or microwave, when the tables need to be set, and when a shower needs to be taken! All of this before one item of food is prepared. Then comes the cooking itself, which seems pretty facile compared to what went in to picking that food in the first place. Finally comes the task of plating the food and serving it to the guests. Eating the meal is enjoyable but the role of the cook doesn't end when dinner begins- there is always a dish to be restocked, a drink to be refilled, and potentially a new course to bring out. And don't forget about clean-up!
     All of this said, I know that my mom would say that it's worth it and she loves to cook. Granted, not every meal is a Thanksgiving or Christmas extravaganza, but every meal she creates is a masterpiece in some shape- well thought out and executed with prestige.
     I've had the pleasure to observe my mom's cooking technique particularly for the past two years and I have learned so much in that time! She has always taken time to teach me things about cooking from the time I was little. The first thing I learned how to make on my own was banana bread; a simple recipe with basic ingredients and a small prep time. I remembering being so excited and beaming with pride when I began making banana bread for the first time without any help from Mom. She was out of the house and didn't know I was making it- what a pleasant surprise would be waiting for her when she walked in the house to the smell of freshly baked banana bread! I had baked this bread so many times before with my mom that I almost had the recipe memorized, so I attempted to bake the bread without any help from that little "unimportant" piece of paper. Everything went great: we had all the ingredients, I didn't burn down the house, I cleaned up the kitchen to be pristine when Mom walked in, the bread smelled amazing, and boy was I feeling good! Then I took out the bread. My beautifully created masterpiece was about an inch thick, not quite the banana bread I was used to pulling out of the hot oven. I sat the pan down on the stove and went over the recipe over and over in my head, trying to figure out what went wrong. Achieving no success, I finally pulled out that "unimportant" piece of paper to see if I did anything wrong. That's when I realized that I had forgot two small yet extremely important facets of the recipe: baking powder and baking soda, ring any bells...? Yeah, my first experience cooking completely on my own without any help from my master teacher yielded a beautifully yet unfortunately dwarfed banana pound cake. Mom loved it all the same :)
     This all to say that I am so grateful for the time and effort that my mom put into to teaching my how to cook and teaching me to appreciate those who do cook. Through all our kitchen experiences, she taught me so much more than just how to put a meal together, and for that I am eternally thankful.

     Last weekend, Mom and I experimented with a new recipe we got from a family friend. A casserole with penne pasta, hamburger, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, Ragu, and mozzarella cheese on the top. Amazing...