undomestic me

I've forever been teased about asking how to boil water when I was in high school. My parents made many meals at home, but we often frequented the nearby Coco's for many meals (it seems to me that we knew many of the food servers by name)(and in our defense, many other folks we knew did the same). But, really, aside from scrambling some eggs and occasionally help with baking cookies, I didn't do much cooking. Driving through KFC or calling Pizza Hut was more my speed.

This sentiment carried on into my college years. Though I graduated to local Thai and Chinese food delivery choices, as well as moved past the corporate pizza delivery joints (though, I still love me some thin crust Dominos). I ate out more and my dining in was either take out or nibblies from Trader Joes, like hummus, pita, olives and Pirates Booty.

So when Jonathan came into my life and suggested making dinner as one of our first dates, I was dumbfounded. Fortunately, he made the dinner and I really didn't need to do much work. Even though he wined and dined me with a Trader Joe's frozen stir fry, I felt equal to the task. A few dates later, I whipped up some turkey spaghetti that he graciously ate. I learned months later that ground turkey makes him gag.

Then we found out we were pregnant. And we moved in together. Suddenly the need to be domestic came over me... Well, kind of. It really wasn't until Hadley was up to eating solids and we had a big kitchen to cook in that I flirted with the idea of cooking. I tried different recipes and combination (both of the solid and pureed form) and, I'm not going to lie, a lot of food went to waste at that time.

Here we are now. Two kids. Living in our owned home. With a kitchen. All Clad pots and pans and our Wustof knife collection, And what are we making for dinner? Shake and Bake chicken and frozen pees.  This is about as gourmet as I seem to get.

But, I do have some beautiful cook books and appliances, so someday when two little people aren't screaming at me at 4:30 because they are hungry, I will tackle a for real recipe. Until then, Shake and Bake and frozen pees it is.