How I Learned to Cook (Better yet, Why I Learned to Cook)

How I Learned to Cook (Better yet, Why I Learned to Cook)

I'm from a small town in south Texas.  It's, at minimum, an hour and half to any major city.  There are no pizza parlors, Chinese restaurants, movie theatres or bowling alleys.  Except for a couple of dance halls where country or"ompah" music is played every Saturday night, there really isn't a great deal to do.  At the time, there were five in my family, my mom, dad (my dad passed away 5 years ago) and my two sisters.  When I was 14 or 15, my mother decided to get her GED.  This was around 1965.  She, like so many other women of the time, married young and married a WWII vet.  So, not only does she get her GED, but she decides to go to college.  I guess this was the beginning of the "women can have it all" era.  When my mother decided to do this, she had a 16 year old, me, at 14, and my younger sister, who was 8.  My father was in the Air Force Reserves and was gone two weeks out of every month.  One major factor, I'm sure, that played into her decision was that my paternal grandmother lived on the same block.  I guess my mom and dad figured that grandma would watch out for us.  For the first two years of college, my mom went to a junior college where she had to take a bus everyday which was about a 4 hour ride round trip.  Then, for her final two years, she lived in the town where the college was located.  Somewhere in here, I decided I was going to learn to cook.  I don't know why.  I had my grandma who was a wonderful cook.  So, one day I informed my dad I was going to cook dinner.  Ok, he says, with a smile.  Knowing full well he probably wouldn't be able to eat it.  Do I start with something simple, like a roast or roast chicken?  No.  I start out with Chicken Pot Pie.  Crust and all.  Well, I make the thing and proudly present it to my dad and my cousin and my two sisters.  They dug right in.  My dad takes the spoon to get a portion and he says, "what are these"?  Well, it was the bones.  To this day I don't remember why I cooked the pot pie with bone in chicken, but I did.  It actually wasn't too bad.  So, I was off on a tear.  Nothing was too hard for me to try.  Plum pudding, cakes,  many layered tortes.  What's funny is that today I refuse to bake.  I really am lousy at it.  My mother went on to teach for 25 years and here I am writing a cooking blog.  Who would have thunk it.