Food. Everybody loves food to a certain
degree. We all eat it to survive. There
are others who eat it for pleasure. The
question is who cooks it? At my house,
that would be me. I take full chef
honors. There used to be a time when my
husband ruled as Lord of the barbecue grill, and my realm was confined to the
kitchen. My kids and I would wait, with baited breath
and growing appetites, for him to come home and cook something, anything, on
the grill. 
One day my
husband decided I needed to master the barbecue grill as well. The skill was on the list of things
that he should do and could do, but unfortunately hardly ever came home to do
and didn’t want to be bothered with when home.
If I wanted the taste of barbecued meat grilled to perfection, I needed to
learn. So I did, all the time with the
nagging thought in the back reaches of my brain that I was being prepared for a
life without him. Is he trying to tell
me something? Probably not, I am just a
tinge paranoid. I am a strong,
independent woman, whether I want to be or not.
This life as a trucker’s wife has made me that way.
Growing
up, it was the same scenario on the most part, since my dad was also an over
the road truck driver like my husband.
While he was away, Mom ruled the kitchen and did all the cooking. When Dad came home, he not only presided
over the barbecue grill, but also dazzled us with his skills in the kitchen. Crazy enough, it was my Dad that attempted to
teach me how to cook and insisted on me helping. He taught me how to cook breakfast: eggs,
pancakes, french toast, you name it. He
showed me how to make his spaghetti and his barbecue chicken. My Dad
actually had a huge collection of recipes that he began accumulating after my
mom died, and I got that little gold mine when he died in 2004.
Even though I watch “Master Chef” avidly and am openly in awe of Gordon Ramsay, and secretly scared shitless of him, I have no delusions that I could compete in the Master Chef kitchen, nor would I desire to. However, we don’t starve, and there are a few dishes I am damn proud to claim as my own concoctions. Yes, I cooked that. My mantra has always been and always will be: if you can read, you can cook.
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