Sunday Stealing

 Cooking

1.  How often do you make food and eat it? I eat every day. It's a family tradition. I come from a long line of people who regularly consume food. Anyway, I suspect the question is asking how often I prepare a meal for myself and then sit down to enjoy it. Answer: more now with the pandemic. I cook for myself most weekdays now. I have made a point of ordering out twice/week to support local businesses. (And because I'm a terrible cook.)

2.  Do you consider toasting bread, preparing instant noodles, or boiling an egg to be cooking? Why or why not? Yes. Because by doing it, I enhance the food and make it palatable.

3.  What’s your favorite dish to make? Tossing a salmon filet on my George Foreman grill and letting it cook while I decide which veggie I'm going to have. It's such an easy way to eat well.

4.  Cooking or baking: what’s more fun? What’s more difficult? I used to enjoy baking. I don't anymore. I have never liked cooking. If I could afford it, I'd eat out all the time.
 

5.  Who did most of the cooking in your house when you were growing up? My mom. The only time my dad had anything to do with what we ate was when he got the grill out of the garage, about twice every summer. As I recall, preparing the hotdogs (for us) and steaks (for him and my mom) was anticlimactic. He liked playing with the charcoal and the lighter fluid.

My dad's grill was more work than mine.

6. How have you learned the cooking skills that you have? Girl Scouts. I'm amazed by how much I remember from those long, long ago days. Also, I read the packaging. Oh! I learned how to marinate my pork chops by Googling, "How do I marinate my pork chops?"

7. Have you ever taken a cooking course? If so, what did you learn? If not, would you like to do one? What would you like to learn? I have no interest. Sorry.

8. Have you tried cooking food from another culture? What did you prepare? How was it? I feel daring when I order something new off the menu. I'm not one to try preparing foreign foods. Also, I have a very sensitive gut, so I have to be careful. Which is a long way of saying, "No, I've never tried it."

9. Is it cost-effective to do your own cooking? Can you save money by cooking? Yes.

10. Would you rather do the cooking or do the washing up afterwards? I actually enjoyed the time I spent with my Nice Grandma (dad's mom), cleaning up after a family meal. We had some nice conversations while I washed and she wiped. Now my Icky Grandma (mom's mom), she was pretty dreadful to be around all the time, including in the kitchen, so I have no such happy memories with her. At my own house, I wait until I have a sinkful of dishes and then I do them at once.
 

11.  Do you use recipes to cook? If so, where do you get the best recipes? Do you get them from friends, family, online, or from cookbooks? I do have a cookbook. I got it second hand, years ago, at the library book sale. I haven't opened it yet, though. I'm going to learn how to cook though. I am. When I was newly out on my own, I lived on spaghetti to save money. I figure when I retire, I'll have to economize again so I'll cook.
 

12.  Have you ever tried to prepare some food and just totally ruined it? What happened? I did mess up a cookie recipe -- the world's easiest cookie recipe -- because the holes I made for the preserves were too deep and they seeped through the cookie dough and scorched the bottoms. I was sad.

13. Do you prefer cooking at home or eating out at a restaurant? Why? I prefer dining in restaurants because I can change my mind about what I'll have at the last moment, it will be prepared better than I ever could, and I don't have to clean up. 

Here's a little Presidential trivia for you: JFK hated eating out, whether at a restaurant or at a friend's home. A millionaire's son, he grew up having a family chef who knew how to prepare meals that wouldn't upset his irritable bowel syndrome. When he was a Senator and then President, he felt lucky to have a wife who was known as a hostess so friends and associates thought it was great to be invited over. He used Jackie to great advantage and, except for campaign or diplomatic functions, he always ate at home. (He never cared much for presentation, though. Left to his own devices, he'd take every meal from a tray.)

14. Is cooking a social activity for you? Do you like to do it with other people, or do your prefer to do it alone? I don't like to do it at all.

15. Do you have a lot of cooking equipment? How often do you use it all? Do you have any pieces of equipment that you rarely ever use? I have a set of pots and pans and there are many I haven't ever used.