Your Mother Couldn't Cook

Could your mother cook? If she didn't, did that affect your own attitude toward cooking -- maybe without you realizing? Let's dish!

First attempt at Triple Citrus Tiger Prawns, June 22nd (looks pretty, but I misread recipe and SEVERELY oversalted!!!)

Ate them all anyway -- something Chef Maili would never do

Today I'm wiped out from posting another lengthy entry yesterday (check it out! I'd love your feedback!), cooking a meal for a friend last night, staying up 'til 4am afterward to tweak and edit the Muu-Muu post, and today needing to plan and shop and cook for dinner for another friend tonight -- so I'm going to take this day as an opportunity to gather some of the hysterical and incredible responses people have posted on Facebook and elsewhere to my questions above. If you want to join in, send me an e-mail or respond in the comments! Tomorrow I will also share about the meal I prepare for my friend, a beautiful woman and fellow memoirist whom I haven't seen in many months. We have a lot of catching up to do. On the menu so far:

Proscuitto & Tuscan Melon w/Fresh Mint (maybe)

Triple Citrus Tiger Prawns w/Thai Chili Sauce
(Triple Citrus Tiger Prawns w/Thai Chili Sauce by Chef Maili)

Caramelized Onions w/Grated Parmesan

Sauteed Kale

Vanilla Ice Cream w/Homemade Ginger & Plum Sauce
(Plum & Ginger Sauce by Chef Maili)

Meanwhile, feast on the following:

YOUR MOTHER COULDN'T COOK -- 

HYSTERICAL, HEART-RENDING TALES OF UNSPEAKABLE, INEDIBLE DELICACIES!

"This is so amazing. My mother used to boil a package of Hebrew National hot dogs and leave them on a plate on the kitchen table for like a week so we could pick at them. that's how bad a cook she was (is)."
-- Malina Saval, author of The Secret Lives of Boys: Inside the Raw, Emotional World of Male Teens (Coming out August 24 in paperback!), Malina Saval's site

Betty Draper "cooking"

"Monday was meatloaf so the leftover could be crumbled into Tuesday's spaghetti sauce (open glass jar of red glop, scorch same in saucepan). That was until about 1977 when some MAD MEN client invented boil in the bag chicken parmesan. I'm not kidding - my mom would toss the four indivdual bags into boiling water. Drain, cut open and dinner was served. (There were 5 of us but I think my brother opted to go hungry those nights.)"
-- Jane Claire Purden

"Another meal -- and I use the word tentatively -- my mom used to cook was elbows and cottage cheese. She'd boil a pot of elbows pasta, then once it was drained, smack a heaping spoonful of Breakstone's cottage cheese (it's a Boston brand; not sure we have it out here) on top. Then she'd mix it all together. She'd pair it with some incongruous beverage like Minute Maid lemonade or orange juice (it also works great with Coke). It's like peasant food and it's so good. Today, I make it for my kids."
-- Malina Saval

"I cook to create something, to let go, to meditate, to relax. I'm confident with a moderate repertoire of mundane to moondancing munchables I can prep and graduate with honors in an hour or less. Who would know -- with my timing, choice of ...a dominant spice, proud sauces -- that I came from naivete in the cupboards and cutlery, alongside culinary luminaries in our hood. Nonetheless, I was lost, bored cutting on the cutting board, more drawn to forklifts than lifting forks. It certainly wasn't from my family that I got any talent beyond enthusiasm with a spatula. To me, until college, whisk was the start of whiskey, and wine, though it rhymed with dine, was more interesting than eating. I grew up in a household where food was always wounded, invalid things dropped on plates after an accident of indescribable heat and attention deficit disorder. My Mom was a terrible cook, steamed veggies until they resembled green, drowned gingerbread men. She was totally uninterested, untalented with intuitions of spicing, uncaring for texture and balance of flavors, uncreative planning a meal, unfocused at the stove and mixing bowl; who would have thought she was an overeater?"
-- Don Helverson

"Anyone remember a unique to the 70's product called "1-2-3 Jello" ?? My mom thought it was a glamourous addition to any gathering. Nothing says celebrate your 25th anniversary or Happy Birthday quite like a dinner of burned Shake N Bake pork chops preceeding this: An orange or lime FLAVORED powder that will, with the magical addition of water, separate into a layer of solid followed by a layer of sponge-like foam topped with a seductive froth of faux chiffon. I think handfulls of shredded coconuts or diced pecans got flung on top - seasonal accents!"
-- Jane Claire Purden

"My mom could never warm the rolls, they were hard and black and hot as cinders by the time she remembered them..."
-- Vicki Whicker

"My mother didn't say don't cook, she just didn't do it well and didn't teach me, but I wasn't teachable back then and am barely now because recipes smack of math...so much precision in the printed recipe...Give me a pinch of that...a palmful of this...if you don't have this ingredient then why don't you try this...it this was how it was pen to paper, then maybe."
-- Vicki Whicker

"My mother refused to teach me how to cook or clean so I wouldn't wind up a housewife like her."
-- Adrienne Urbanski

"Rachel, I have always been wary of cooking and saw the whole subsisting on take out and frozen entrees thing as part of being a hip single girl. The same goes for having a cluttered apartment. But this summer I have been seeing cooking as a means to have better nutrition and save money, and also something that can be fun. I only cook for other people on holidays though, and have never cooked anything for a man. Cooking is something I just do for myself, to take care of myself."
-- Adrienne Urbanski

Tip Of The Day:  Snapware from Costco, $29.99. A set of 18 pieces. Super-sealing lids. Glass storage containers. You'd be amazed how much tastier your leftovers are, and how much longer they stay crisp and fresh. Thanks, Maili! If you need a few additional groovy glass storage containers, (generally overpriced but good in a pinch) Sur La Table in Santa Monica has a sale on Italian Bormioli Frigoverre -- "The Guarantee of Glass"!

Also coming soon...the various incarnations of Chef Maili's signature dish, Triple Citrus Tiger Prawns w/Thai Chili Sauce. You will wince when you hear how innovatively I botched the first two or three times I made them (see pics way above). This will be the fifth attempt. The fourth worked well, at my first dinner party (post TK) -- and then I served them the next day chilled on a bed of cucumbers. Totally worked! (I hate it when you make something and it goes bad the next day...) 

To close, rather than recounting the dinner and visit with my friend (let me do that for tomorrow's post) -- here is a fabulous addition to the various Your Mother Couldn't Cook tales:

"Once my mom made Lemon Meringue pie and forgot to put sugar in it. That was the only time she made it ;-)

"Once we picked wild raspberries and decided to make raspberry jam. We mixed the sugar with the berries, and stirred and stirred as it sat on the stove. We were convinced we saw the mixture on the verge of boiling. Those little tiny dots must be about-to-boil bubbles. After an hour, my sister came in and pointed out that the stove wasn't on. Apparently we thought raspberry seeds were bubbles.

"We often had burnt popcorn and apples for supper. A mom specialty that was kinda good - peanut butter chops. Peanut butter sandwiches cooked like grilled cheese. Burnt of course, but the charcoal mixed with the peanut butter for a taste that was kinda pleasing."
-- Amelia P. 

If I can cook, anyone can. And so can you -- even if your mother couldn't cook. Eat well!

RR

xo