As a skinny kid with big feet (irrelevant?), food was just food. I ate it. Not enough, according to my grandparents, but fast forward fifty years, and a shocking glance at my scale would quiet them down. Although looks were deceiving, my mother was a simple Russian peasant cook. Despite her weekly beauty parlor set hair, Estée Lauder frosted apricot lipstick, and Chico’s couture, her menus were nothing but old country. She did not pass along her love of cooking to her only child.
Growing up, I saw the glass half-empty side of her cooking. The making of Gefilte fish, a Passover staple, is a biblical horror story from the murdering of the poor fish at the Deli to the odors remaining from the cooking of the poor bludgeoned Carp. Not sure if the fish-killer’s job title is Butcher, but that’s what he did with a hammer to the poor flopping fish that my mother hand-picked. It’s a lot for a nine-year-old to process watching Charlie Tuna’s violent demise.
Yoo Hoo and a Pickle, Anyone?
My house was not just a non-red, less glitzy Russian Tea room, as my mother only cooked like she was living in the shtetl. She snacked like a 70’s teenager and filled our kitchen with Coca-cola, Yoo-Hoos, and every Hostess snack from Devil Dogs to Ring Dings. Mom was always on a diet and tried to live vicariously through me. It didn’t work out so well for her. I had and still have odd eating tastes. I prefer pickles to cookies and salami instead of a Reese’s Cup. As I loaded my celery with mustard, I would tune out my mother screaming at me to use peanut butter instead. I may have been the only kid to get yelled at for eating healthy.
I moved out of my parent’s home when I was 23 and didn’t get married until close to 40. That was a ton of time to live independently and never develop culinary skills. Amazingly, I spent over 15 years responsible for food entering my body and have only moderate dietary health issues.
There was a spell during my twenties when I fancied myself a cook by subscribing to Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines. I paid a lot of money for visitors to enter my reading room, aka bathroom, and think I must be a great cook. This theory has nine million holes. I have been a subscriber to Real Simple since its inception, yet my drawers are filled with junk, my counters are cluttered, and there are clothes in my closet that I haven’t worn in more than three years.
With a few go-to dishes like a no-boil lasagna and a spicy pork tenderloin, I could delude myself into believing I had some skills in the kitchen. My mother thought I was hopeless as I couldn’t even share the tenderloin with my Kosher-attempting but bacon-eating parents. Not sure why bacon is acceptable, but in my house, anything with the word pork in the title was a sin. Bacon tastes too good to be a sacrilege.
Despite the magazines and a couple of well-made dishes, my kitchen contents would even look paltry to a stereotypical Stoneage bachelor. I blame impatience, laziness, and the need for immediate gratification. Coming home from work starving, all I could do was boil the water for the boxed mac and cheese. Later on, with more disposable income. I would buy the refrigerated tortellini and eat it out of the package uncooked. Sometimes I would add cold-bought pesto sauce. I hear the rumble of my ancestors all collectively turning in their graves.
When I first started dating my husband, he would sneak off twice a week to get his fix of Mcdonald’s. Somewhere between the fast food escapes, remote out-of-state jobs, and two kids, he became a true cook.
They Won’t Starve
The seeds of the burgeoning chef started when the kids were small, and my husband worked locally. I recall panicking at 5:30, realizing he would be home in less than an hour. I would do everything I neglected to do during the day in those last 60 minutes before he arrived. Clean the house, balance the checkbook, start the wash, and make dinner, to name a few. I was the polar opposite of a 50’s housewife whose goal was to be dolled up to the nines, waiting with a drink. On a good day, I may have been wearing a non-stained shirt. Rick claims he learned his cooking skills while living on the road. I beg to differ. Arriving home hungry, he had no choice but to finish preparing the mess on the island I called meal prep.
During Rick’s travel years, my kids were surprisingly not malnourished. Although my son had a few years where that graph veered off the charts, I mainly kept them in the healthy range. Hearing moms boasting that their kids eat sushi, steak and shellfish always gives me pause.
My son Jake lived on non-organic chicken nuggets and un-homemade mac and cheese. Occasionally I could sneak in some cucumbers, raw carrots, and one piece of broccoli. My kids had a cheese sandwich with nothing on it but butter and white bread for ten years. In high school, we discovered Nutella, a non-nutritional step up.
As the years went on, I became lazier and let my family become my enablers. Often I would ask a kid if I could make them a sandwich or some eggs, and invariably, the response would be, “Can Dad make it?” So I said sure and returned to whatever non-important thing I was doing.
Since covid plunked my husband’s office in the middle of our living room, I rarely am alone during meal times. Last week he was gone the whole day, and I ate four packages of ramen noodles, three mini bags of fiery Cheetos, and then a bowl of Hershey’s syrup without the ice cream. My favorite go-to snack when everyone goes to bed is a bowl of Goldfish crackers drenched in Big Red hot sauce. Incredibly pathetic, some may say disgusting, but this is no poetic license but the plain naked truth.
You Eat What?
When you think of a secret eater, you think of someone possibly hoarding Girl Scout cookies and then eating boxes at a time (Not saying that as a pregnant woman, I didn’t ring the Girl Scouts next door’s doorbell three times one day to get my fill of Thin Mints.) I am more like that bizarre food guy but instead of international cuisine more like crappy American salty junk food. I am a closet Slim Jim eater. Even worse, I like those fat packaged sausages with the very enticing name of Hot Mama that you can maybe find one from decades ago still lingering on the shelves of the shadiest of convenience stores. For years, I would drive out of my way to random 7-11s to make the purchase. Wawas are way more convenient, but too much of a risk of running into someone familiar. I came out of the closet a few years ago when I ran into a friend buying them for her whole family. Ok, if they could do it, so could I. Living in bagless New Jersey, it is unnerving walking to the car holding packaged meat snacks for all the world to see.
As I get older, I have become more conscious of my food choices. Weight Watchers has done a lot more for me than taking off pounds. The point value of a Taco Bell Dorito taco is enough to make me grab a handful of fire sauce packets to suck down and be happy. Im trying. If only I could get the makers of Slim Jims to come out with a low-sodium healthy version.
