I am on a serious mission this summer. I, Victoria, do solemnly swear that come September I will have mastered the exquisite execution of a full course meal. This isn’t so much a quest to become the female Gordon Ramsay in order to impress my family and friends than it is about just making them think that I am a fantastic chef. All I need is one killer appetizer, entree, and dessert. Never mind the fact that I will probably serve that same meal every time on a different plate under a different name —I shall enjoy what temporary praises and adorations there may be for my newly acquired signature dishes.

Prior to this undertaking, the only form of cooking I’ve ever done was stick my mother’s dishes in the microwave. My mother is an absolutely phenomenal cook who can make just about anything. She is also a control freak and guards her territory, the kitchen, like a hawk. I can’t count the number of times she’s shrieked at my brother and I for entering bare feet without our slippers, or the number of “Out!”s we’ve been greeted with upon trying to sneak a look –a look, not even a taste –at what was brewing, frying, or baking.

My mother also must have had some sort of alter ego, because when she wasn’t yelling at me to stop meddling with her food, she was complaining about how very little I knew about cooking and god knows how I would survive when I moved out. And so in my last year of high school, I became an apprentice to her. It was one of those things that theoretically should have translated into a bountiful amount of beautiful mother-daughter moments, but instead took the meaning of Nitpicking to a whole new level. What started as patient explanations and enthusiastic nods gradually took a downward turn to comments on how I wasn’t holding the knife right or the volume of my chopping being too loud. Eventually I would find myself standing to one side watching my mother do everything, except for the one or two instances where I would be allowed to throw in a teaspoon of salt or some other important task like that. Fast forward to six o’clock and my mother would tell my dad and brother that I cooked dinner tonight and wasn’t it nice and tasty. She genuinely believed it herself, too. That was the weirdest part.

Even the experience of leaving home and starting university did not add to my culinary skills since I had a meal plan (although whether Sodexho saved or killed me is certainly debatable). It was about the last week or so before summer started that I ran out of the 300 meals on my card. No biggie though. What I did, I went down to Dominion and bought a huge bottle of juice, a jumbo sized box of honey cheerios, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter and jam. Sure I could eat breakfast three times a day. Big mistake. When I found myself running through the rain to get soup –anything savoury –from Timmy Ho’s, I knew something about all the crazy had to be fixed.

Cue this summer: the perfect opportunity to remedy my dysfunctionality in the kitchen. The point I’m trying to make by detailing all this background information is that I am fully, truly a novice. You must therefore be warned that the posts following this may contain many asinine questions and revelations, as well as disastrous finished products of recipes. There is a positive side though, that hinges on my successes. Because if I can do it, your pet hamster also can. Read, laugh and perhaps learn, I guess.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 7th, 2008 at 10:38 pm and is filed under Food & Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.