Cooking: The Sequel

So someone in their infinite "wisdom" (or perhaps humor?) decided that I needed to be in charge of cooking again. I don't really know if they liked my food, or just wanted me to blog about it again. In any case, here is the story of tonight's adventure.

Last time, we ran out of gas for the stove, so everything took longer to cook. We had wished that we started earlier. Then we might have had more time to finish. Today, I granted my own wish and showed up at 3:50 to start cooking for our 6pm dinner.

No one was there.

Hmmm, looks like I'm on my own.

I walked over to the menu: chicken.....stuff & mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes?? I'm a mashed potato genius!

I don't remember when it started, but somewhere along the line, it became my duty to make the mashed potatoes every Thanksgiving. My other brothers had jobs too. One was in charge of the Pillsbury croissant rolls. Step one: open package. Step two: roll out croissant rolls onto pan. Step three: put in oven. Step four: take out of oven. Four steps, 20 minutes, 15 of which are waiting for them to cook in the oven. The other is in charge of the canned cranberry sauce. Step one: open can. Step two: dump onto plate. Somehow, I think I got the shaft in these work assignments.

I'm in charge of peeling and boiling and mashing and adding salt and adding butter and adding milk and tasting it to make sure it's just right and adjusting in case that it isn't and it takes me quite a bit longer than the 21 minutes that the other tasks combine to take.

Anyways, I've been doing mashed potatoes for years, so I set to work on that. How many potatoes? Twenty? I can do twenty. I walk back to the pantry and find three bags of potatoes. Two look very nice, but the third does not look so nice to me. (Is it just me or should food not have things growing on it?)

I grab a nice bag of potatoes and there's about 18 in the bag. I get started with those, and figure that by the time my helper shows up, she can give me a second opinion about if we need more or not. I scrub them, and peel them and start putting the peeled ones in a pot. I get most of the way done and my helper has not shown up yet. She went to church and probably hung around in town for a while. I hoped that she didn't forget that she was on dinner prep with me, or we would have only had mashed potatoes tonight. ("So Mike, you're on dinner prep again?" "Yep." "What are we having?" "Mashed potatoes." "And?" "And what? Just potatoes.")

Thankfully she showed up, sufficiently erasing that thought. I kept going on my mashed potato masterpiece, and she started the chicken......stuff. She is a rockstar in the kitchen and is in charge of dinners from Monday to Friday. She knows what she is doing, so I'm very thankful that she is in charge of the chicken.....stuff. (Don't ask me to describe it to you.)

She gives me another bag of potatoes (the gross bag) and I set to work cutting off all the gross stuff growing on the potatoes, and peeling them and putting them into the pot. (As you read this and wonder about the potatoes that are sitting in your stomach, know that I turned on my perfectionist mode and made sure that each potato was a picture of delicious perfection before I added it to the pot.)

She also gives me some carrots and something else that has a normal sounding name, but I don't remember it at the moment. They looked like carrots, but were white. (Maybe my helper will comment on this and tell me what they were. :) ) I scrubbed and peeled and chopped those like a champ. (Someone even compared my skills to a knife infomercial where they chop really fast. I wasn't going that fast, but it was a nice compliment. :) )

Soon the potatoes are on the stove, next to the chicken........stuff. I designate myself as the potato watcher and just stand by the pot and watch them boil. My helper is very clever and gives me a bunch of useful tasks to fill my time with. I filled up the salt shakers, I put out the plates, I put out the bread. Then I noticed some dishes that needed washing and putting away. By the time those things were done, it was time to take the spuds off the stove and start mashing. Zero time spent being unuseful. If there were such things as cooking efficiency ratings, ours would be very high.

I take the potatoes and put them in the biggest bowl I could find, and start mashing. I followed very precise steps:
1) MASH MASH MASH
2) Add random amounts of sour cream, milk, and salt
3) MASH MASH MASH MASH MASH MASH MASH MASH
4) Taste

Perfect! I'm a mashed potato genius!

Actually, I added a bit too much salt, and probably a bit too much milk and also a bit too much sour cream. :-p Luckily, I was only working with half of the potatoes. I went and added the rest of the boiled potatoes to the ones that I already mashed and repeated the precise steps I had previously followed, omitting step two:
1) MASH MASH MASH
3) MASH MASH MASH MASH MASH MASH MASH MASH
4) Taste

Even more perfect than last time! I am a mashed potato genius!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to turn off my perfectionist mode, and as I stared at my perfect potatoes, I wondered how they could be better. Maybe I should mash them some more. Maybe I should add some more milk. Maybe I should use a different utensil for mashing, or perhaps a different technique. Before I could start wondering if there were any ancient Chinese mashing techniques, someone grabbed the bowl and put it out to be served to the masses. I felt like a parent sending a kid off to college. "Goodbye, I hope I've prepared you enough to face the world on your own."

Then I walked over to my helper (I keep calling her "my helper" when actually, I was her helper), and asked if I could help with anything. Nothing comes to mind, so I go and get some water to drink. I come back and she has found some peppers that we couldn't find earlier.

Me: "Is it too late to add them?" I ask, not wanting to ruin the masterpiece that is being stirred in the pot.
Her: "Nope, just chop them up and I'll add them." She responds a little too non-chalantly, not fully grasping the seriousness of adding such a flavorful ingredient so late in the game.
Me: "Okay." I say, silently wondering if Picasso ever non-chalantly splashed green paint on any of his paintings right before sending them to the museum.

I start chopping them, wondering if the nose is going to fall off our sphinx if we start chiseling too much. When I'm done, I go and get more water. When I get back, she has already added them to the pot containing the chicken.........stuff. Oh well, I guess we'll find out.

Last task: Find a thing so we can put the pot on it so it's not directly on the table.

I know she means a rectangular oven mitt, but they are nowhere to be found. I find a glove shaped one. Not good enough I guess, as she walks over to the secret (by secret, I mean in plain view) location by the side of the room and grabs one from the stack that is sitting there. Oh, I didn't see those.

She sets out the chicken..........stuff, we pray and now it's time to eat. My perfectionist mode is still turned on, so I'm nervous as people approach the food. Is it going to be good enough? What if it's bad? What if it's so bad that people die?!?! The next thought was going to be about growing facial hair and changing my name, but people just sat down like nothing was the matter and ate the food. I guess it wasn't bad. (That's the nice thing about a perfectionist serving dinner to a bunch of non-perfectionists.)

I grabbed some and sat down too. It was far from bad. It was actually really good. Green beans, and mashed potatoes, and chicken...........stuff, and bread. Mmmmmm, I wanted to take a picture, but I had loaned out my camera to a friend.

Each bite was better than the last. I was quietly having a religious experience while everyone else conversed about their days. Not only was the taste perfect, but it was also perfectly portioned to exactly match my hunger needs. I had created a magical dinner! I quietly declared my helper and I to be champions of the kitchen, and started daydreaming about how the crisis in the Middle East could be solved with a giant pot of chicken............stuff. It was a good day.