Somewhere along the line, I got a reputation as a "good cook".  Some would say I'm a great cook, but they're either being kind, or they've not experienced a great cook.  A great cook, in my view, is someone who can turn food into ecstasy, and I'm not in that league.  But I can turn out a pretty darned impressive meal.  That's even more remarkable to the uninformed because I have the smallest kitchen in the developed world. 

But, I've never been much of a "maintenance" cook.   You know.  The kind of cooking your mother did.  Or maybe your grandmother, if you're under 30.  Three meals a day.  Seven days a week. Maybe once or twice in a week, food came from a box in the freezer or from take-out nearby.   But almost 20 times a week, the family (and gathered friends, neighbours and relatives) gathered around a table, and ate a meal.

My mother was an okay cook.  She had her specialties, for which she was known far and wide: spaghetti sauce.  Chicken soup.  Roast beef.   Sunshine and shadow squares. And fried matzoh.  She told the story of her adolescence and early adult years, when if her parents left for the weekend, they opened the tins of tuna fish for her, because she literally didn't know how to use a can-opener.   Then she married my dad.  And then, a year later, she had a baby. Fourteen months after that, she had a second.  And she was destined to a marriage that had small and insecure sources of income for decades.  She learned to cook.   Maintenance cooking.  Cooking before the days of refrigerator trucks, balsalmic vinegar, and President's Choice entrees at the supermarket.

I didn't learn to cook as a child.  In fact, my brother was the cook in the family, when my mother was unable to do the task at hand.  When my mother went back to university as we entered high school, my brother took over cooking, and I got baking duty.  Fortunately, my mom had never been much of a baker, so it didn't take much to impress in that territory. 

It was much later that I took an interest in cooking.  I think it was the discovery of the Silver Palate cookbooks, and shop and products, that introduced me to the notion of glamour cooking.  Cooking to impress.  To   delight the senses.  Cooking and eating as recreational and social activities.   What a thrilling discovery!  And I've been a big fan of that kind of cooking ever since.  Sure, I've had my difficulties -- the time I tried to make duck for New Year's Eve, and we ended up ordering pizza comes to mind.  I almost always end up preparing one less course than I had planned, just because I've underestimated the complexity of what I've undertaken.

I probably peaked on cooking as spectacle a few years back, when "operation Thanksgiving" started three days in advance of the date.  After all, I had to make the cornbread that would be allowed to become stale for a day so that I could turn it into stuffing for the turkey.  Quel nightmare that all turned out to be, though dinner was spectacular indeed.  Since that time, I've scaled back: three courses maximum for my preparation, preferably two, with one or more provided by guests who innocently ask "What can I bring?".

Most recently, I've had to come to terms with the harsh reality that we were spending enormous sums of money to eat mediocre food.  This was happening for two reasons.  First, we (my life partner and I) seemed not to talk when I cooked and we ate at home, even together. Second, I almost never wanted anything I had time to cook.  I'd become a food snob.  I could eat ordinary food out. But I'd be damned if I was going to put the time and effort into cooking something ordinary myself! 

So, starting this week, we're trying to solve both problems.   I feel like we're making headway. But then, I've only managed two dinners in a row.   Managing four or five a week for a month or two will be greater reassurance for me that I'm over the food snob hurdle.  And that I've finally mastered that task my mother learned so much earlier.  Maintenance cooking is what we need to know.   Cooking as spectacle is good for the occasional "wow" dinner. But in between, food is to maintain us, and cooking for maintenance respects time, money constraints, and health requirements.  Maintenance cooking is my next goal: I hope it turns out to be easier than getting a PhD!

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