Blogging the Fringe

Tuesday 7 August 2007

I Can’t Cook (or reasons why I will die of malnutrition)

Some readers (yes, there is more than one) have asked that I give more personal details about my fabulous life abroad. Suggested topics included questions about my meals and the Scottish cuisine. Since I have vowed to hold nothing back, the below confessions may disturb and trouble. Fair warning for the weak of heart or stomach is now given: Read no further or continue at your own risk.

Restaurants: I do not eat out because I cannot afford it. No one buys my food because I look entirely too well-fed.

Well-Fed: A term that favors quantity over quality. Very misleading.

I go to grocery stores.

Here is an exact list of what I buy:

Nutella
Nutella
Bread
Cheese
Pasta
Tomato sauce
Jam
Bananas (other fruits if cheaper)
Turkey Slices

The main ingredient of nearly 80% of my meals is Nutella, which is why in order of importance it is listed first…and twice. These ingredients have several things in common: they are cheap, easy if not completely painless to prepare (read: take out of bag), and the best part? Any combination of the ingredients can be consumed together. It’s like buying an all-black wardrobe; you never have to look at what you put on (in).

Away from the defrosting abilities of my parents and the oven-hot (nevermore mocked) meals of the college dining hall, I am weak, helpless and lost. I now have that recurring daydream in which one is able to resurrect and eat past meals in the present day. I think about all of the good things I have eaten in the last decade or two, how much more I would relish them the second time around…”you don’t know what you’ve got, till it’s gone”---isn’t that what they sing? I make lists of days I would particularly select to re-eat, if I was forced to choose only a week or less out of my life. I am ridiculously jealous of my past self.

I think about the matrix and whether or not I would sell Neo for a juicy steak.

Sometimes I think that I would.

I wake up in a cold sweat convinced that the Machines have betrayed me and not given me the promised steak.

I decide to be loyal to the revolution until I find a better way to insure my meat.

Sometimes when I come “home” to the flat where I am staying, I entertain the idle hope that the flat mates (whom I just met and barely know) will have cooked me dinner. Perhaps they made too much of something impossible to refrigerate, or better yet they have noticed my poor diet, held a meeting on the subject, taken pity, taken up collection, and are now resolved to trade off days playing chef. I will protest only enough to be courteous: Don’t worry about me, you dears. I will be fine! This is perfectly healthy. I am merely roughing it for a couple of weeks…well….no, I don’t want to offend you, and…yes seeing as how you’ve already made all this food….oh, alright, if you’re going to twist my arm!

I have planned out these exchanges so meticulously that I am downright peevish when the kitchen is empty. It is how I know that this is the real world: it is a place where no one cooks for me…it is a place I do not like.

Here is my own cooking guide, it’s not exactly Betty Crocker, but you can now eat vicariously, just like me, right in your very own home:

ADDITIONAL DISCLAIMER:

* Not recommended for children, those with prior health issues should consult a doctor.

Melty Cheese Sandwich

Ingredients: Bread, Cheese

Slice Cheese and put on bread (cover completely). Place bread on plate. Microwave plate for 30-45 seconds as needed. Do not let cool, eat quickly and enjoy.

Variations: Add tomato sauce, turkey, banana, or nutella to step two.

Carb Sandwich

Ingredients: Pasta, tomato sauce, bread

Prepare undercooked pasta and place onto bread. Pour on pasta sauce and squeeze shut with second piece of bread. Microwave 1 minute.

Use cheese if desired.

Banana Magic

This meal is called “banana magic” because after I have finished all the necessary preparations, you can hardly taste the banana. How does she do it?

Ingredients: Banana, Nutella

Spread Nutella on Banana. Eat banana while adding more nutella before and after every bite. Use either a spoon, knife, or finger to spread. Keep eating nutella, even when there are no more bananas.

Variations: Banana can be replaced with anything cheap. Nutella is a magical spread that makes nearly everything edible.

Reasons why I don’t cook:

It’s selfish: I think I have read too much Arthur Miller and become Puritan through osmosis. I just can’t justify putting time, energy, thought, or planning into a meal solely for myself. If there was anyone else who either depended or expected on the food I provided, it is quite possible that I would be able to muster more energy to make a proper meal out of the hurried stuffing. I don’t like myself enough to truly enjoy the luxury of eating alone. I have this image of movies where the newly divorced prepares dinner slowly, lights candles, turns on music, and relishes the newfound freedom of being alone. I have my strongest doubts that this scene is repeated nightly. In fact, I would think that the recently divorced compose nearly a quarter of Nutella’s annual sales figures. That is not to say that everyone not being closely monitored would likewise “let themselves go” or that Nutella is the first step toward general degradation and living in your own unwashed, unshaven, filth. I am merely pointing out that it is harder to care about what you consume alone.

I’m entirely too hungry: By the time I realize that I should eat, I have already reached a state of hunger. In this slightly delirious frame of mind, it seems preposterous to slow down and actually cook something. At the same time, once I am finished eating, I cannot remember what all the fuss was about. I convince myself that I have more or less permanently satiated myself and that cooking anything now (in the hopes of perhaps merely re-heating tomorrow) is utterly pointless. Food is for mortals, I am a creature of the mind, the finely tuned intellect, what need have we for food? And after all--- cooking is so selfish.

R.L. Stine: Do you remember those “Goosebumps” books? They used to be stocked mile high across a shelf right near the entrance of my childhood supermarket. Every time I went in with my parents, I would immediately abandon them and lose myself in the tales of the crypt keepers, newly dead, and all sorts of other nail-biting pleasures. This is why I never learned how to properly grocery shop. While other kids learned by mimicking their elders, I never got the hang of buying food with a meal in mind. Again with the wardrobe metaphor, it is not enough to buy a shirt---one has to match it with something to make an outfit. This is why when you make an independent purchase it is called “piecemeal.” You can’t eat it.

When I played “House” we always ordered take-out. I never assumed that chicken grew pre-packaged in the grocery stores…I was simply convinced that it actually appeared fully cooked in my fridge. These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant ninny. I am more than capable of doing my own laundry, paying my bills, arranging my own travel and am entirely self-sufficient except for this tiny, minor oversight in my upbringing.

So there you have it.

If we really are what we eat, then I have just confessed the contents of my soul, and much more than I had intended.

Please let me know if you have any further questions; I will attempt to do justice to their answers.


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