Soup and Sandwiches

Last night it was vegetable barley stew with tuna sandwiches. Tonight it will be minestrone, romaine salad and fresh bread. Did I mention the soup will be homemade? Like last night’s stew? No, well it will be. How did this happen? Me cooking.

When I was young and my mother wanted to teach my sister and I to cook, she meant baking. The kinds of things that my father liked to have around that were time consuming to prepare, and she didn’t feel like doing herself. While I don’t think my parents had children with the intention of fobbing off their least favorite chores on us, over the years that is what happened. I am sure that I was never taught to cook a meal though my mother claims otherwise. I am sure for the simple fact that my father wasn’t someone who wanted his meal ready and on the table when he arrived home from work in the evening. He wanted to read the paper. Have a few beers. And then a few more. Smoke the cigarettes that had been burning a hole in his pocket during his ten hour shift at the meat packing plant. While our friends were having dinner, we were playing outside,waiting for them to be done, but by the time they were finished, it was dinner time for us. After enduring family meal, a ritual that became more and more arduous as the years rolled by, my father’s drinking got steadily heavier, and my parent’s relationship more strained; my sister and I would hurry through the clean-up the hope that would still be enough daylight left for play or homework or whatever. As a result, I never learned to cook a meal.

When I went out on my own, meals were haphazard affairs. I am the kind of person who can eat the same thing for weeks and months on end without thinking much about it. Variety never had much to do with food for me. Even now, I have certain preferences and if not for Katy and Rob, I would rarely spice up my routine beyond my few favorites.

My late husband liked to cook, and he was easily bored with routine. He did most of the evening meal prep when we ate in, but because we were childless for the first while, we ate out a lot too. Later on his illness effected his appetite to the point where he didn’t eat much, and Katy was still a baby, so there was no need to prepare meals in the traditional sense. I got into the habit of feeding the two of them and then eating breakfast foodmyself, if I ate at all.

Rob had limited rotation of meals when I first met him. When it became too tedious for his daughter to bear, I think, then Jordan would cook to change things up a bit. So, when he and I blended our lives nightly meals became something that I to truly deal with for the first time in my life. At first, I left it to Rob, who was pretty good about it despite the fact that he had to work all day and come home to the additional work of preparing the family meal. He would give me jobs to do like vegetable prep or salad making. From there I progressed to making lunch for everyone, as Rob came home most days, and it was a bit like making supper but with a less demanding menu. After a time the occasional meal became my responsibility. And now, I am making soup from scratch.

I know that many women would find my pride in this accomplishment laughable especially because in my peer group, many married young and have been juggling husband and children and jobs and cooking for decades now. But for me, I am still quite impressed with myself. First I am writing regularly, and now I cook. On par as far as creative endeavors go? Perhaps not, but both are outlets in my quest for personal growth and discovery.