Much to my family's disappointment, I don't like cooking dinner. But give me an excuse to bake brownies or oatmeal cookies, and I'm all over it.
I know the reason why: I still have a culinary Grand Canyon between my French mother and me. She was the master of the sauce and cake pan, while I owned the cookie sheet, and never the twain shall meet.
When I was growing up, my mother cooked fabulous meals out of Gourmet magazine and Henri-Paul Pellaprat's "Everyday French Cooking," all from scratch. My mother never shortened anything or used a mix. She would start the dinner prep after our afterschool snack and use only the freshest onions and tomatoes from our twice-weekly grocery shopping trips (But mom, "Star Blazers" is on at 3:30, and I'm missing it!) to concoct chicken curry and Hungarian goulash.
But she could not will the cookies to rise to save her life.
My mother often told me that my grandmother was a talented chef and that she didn't know how to cook when she married my father. Dad wanted home-cooked meals, not TV dinners, so she bought a bunch of cookbooks and followed the directions. I knew she had a certain knack for cooking, and I thought she enjoyed it, but it was more complicated than that. She didn't love to cook, but she loved her family, and she showed her love for us via her 1-2-3 cake with sifted confectioners' sugar for the frosting, shepherd's pie and ham soufflé. The fondest memory I have of my now-estranged mother is her baking a pineapple upside-down cake for the family of a teen who was killed riding his motorcycle.
At certain times she'd invite me into the kitchen to help her make dinner, but usually I had math homework to get done (and I wasn't good at math). She was better at cooking than I was, and I didn't want her telling me how I couldn't stir the gravy the right way or that I made too much of a mess when sifting the flour. Better to cut my losses.
This room was her realm, and I knew I didn't belong there. Until one day I witnessed her attempt at making chocolate chip cookies. What a disaster! The cookies looked like flattened roadkill leaking chocolate ribbons into all corners of the dark sheet. Ah, a chink in the armor - perhaps I could swoop in and perfect something she couldn't do. For I had seen how impressed my teachers and friends were when I took her cakes to school. "Did your mother really make this cake from scratch?" my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Graham, asked twice. Yes, of course she did! Doesn't everyone? That day I found out the hard truth about Betty Crocker mixes. I also realized that not everything had to be made from scratch.
In college and in the following years, I became known as the brownie queen and loved seeing smiles on chocolate lips. Most of all, I baked because I wanted my friends to like me. Today my memoir students and family clamor for my mix-made cakes, cookies and cupcakes.
Like my mother, I possess strong culinary instincts. I don't use a measuring cup and combine nonsuggested ingredients for my baking projects. Apparently my French cooking gene has passed down to my son, Daniel. His favorite track out and summer camp is Lil' Chef in North Raleigh, where we recently celebrated his eighth birthday.
My husband wishes more than anything that I could get over my complex about cooking nice dinners for the family and stop making Hamburger Helper and microwaved broccoli. I know I need to get over the notion that I won't ever be as good a cook as my mother, who, after all, wasn't born with a spatula in her hand. Cooking can be fun, right? And not everything has to be perfect. Perhaps Daniel will let me join him at his next cooking class.
