Memorable Holiday Meals

Mary Schmich is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also writes the Brenda Starr comic -- but that's another story. Anyway, on Wednesday, December 6, she had a column that really resonated with me. Apparently her mother and I have quite a bit in common. Cooking. Or rather, the lack of it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0612060051dec06,1,391967.column?ctrack=1&cset=true


If I haven't mentioned it before, I will now. It runs in my family. My grandmother, born and bred in the south with plenty of servants, never really learned how to cook. Even though she and Granddaddy ended up being missionaries to China and Korea for many many years, there was always someone else around to do the cooking. Lao Lao (Chinese for "old old" -- or "the mother's mother) claimed she only "applied heat to food."

My mother, born and raised in China, also did not cook, though she certainly did better than Lao Lao. After our family returned from the mission field when I was six, she HAD to cook or we'd not eat at all. She mastered about 4 basics and we had them over and over again, including at least 17 different ways to eat Spam (the canned variety....) She never did master the art of the broiler.

Unfortunately, my daughters also do not cook. Fortunately they married men who love to cook and do it well.

I'm hoping Tim finds someone who cooks, because if not, he'll be left in the same sort of spot my husband finds himself -- a wife who applies microwave to food and can do the same basics -- over and over again. He's hoping to find a wife much like his Aunt Rosie.

My sisters cook. They are really very good. Rosie can whip up meals for millions -- she has to on Wednesday nights for family night at the church. Lyn too, is a wonderful cook.

But this is why I resonated so much with Mary's column the other day. It was most excellent. I wish I had met her mother. She opened cans and heated -- I defrost and microwave. Same principle -- different generation.

I think Bob might rather have had a Baker than a Blogger for a wife...

Sorry, honey.