8.08.2008

Trial and Error

My darling mother never used recipes for cooking while I was growing up. Oh we had cookbooks, and I made devout and religious study of them. But mum would throw in a little of this, a handfull of that, and stick it in the oven for oh however many minutes, and wuah-lah! Perfection! She has this magical sense for when something was 'done'. She knew precisely how a chickens leg should wiggle when it was cooked to tender, juicy perfection. She knew exactly how browned a biscuit should be when it had reached fluffy, flaky perfection. Ah! If I could only reach such a height of knowledge!
I've been feeling very ambitious and brave and housewifely in my kitchen lately. With only 3 weeks to go before transforming into Mrs. David Silliman, I decided that I should get a handle on cooking meals that men can eat. I am sadly handicapped however, having only one 8/13 pan and one little pot. My options have been to make either a miniscule amount of food, or righteous heaps of it! I've gone for the heaps of it, which seems to thrill my fiance to pieces.
"I love how you always make way too much food!" he exclaims in delight. "I always have enough for lunch the next day!"
My most recent endeavor came in the form of biscuits. I'd picked ever so many raspberries that day, but realized that they were so ripe they wouldn't last thru the night. I wanted so badly to make shortcake, but had no heavy cream, so biscuits it had to be. Now I'm not sure if my mother actually had magic fairy dust, or if I just rolled them out too thinly, but my biscuits did not achieve the 'mile high' state which I was hoping for. Oh, the flavor was divine, just divine in a very flat way.
One simply cannot eat berries and biscuits without a little whipped cream, but I lacked such a luxery. In my eager state I decided to whip half and half. If you ever need to laugh hysterically, I recommend doing this! It foams! In five seconds I had a huge bowl full of fluffy white foam, and David found me in stitches on my kitchen floor.
Despite these drawbacks, my man raved about everything, and a funny thing happened. Perhaps I had a little magic fairy dust of my own, but in eating those sad little biscuits covered in raspberries and foam, he fell madly in love with me all over again! And I realized that however sadly I fail in the kitchen, his utter adoration of me will always provide the motivation to try, try again.

4 comments:

Diane said...

Oh dear! Can you come over and we'll do a little cooking together?
But, then again, I love your wonderfully funny experiences - you are sooooooooo beautifully sweet, daughter! xoxo

Unknown said...

YOU ARE SO ADORABLE! I LOVE YOU!

Anonymous said...

LOL--too cute! And, the foam reminded me of the last time I watched "Top Chef"--foams are "all the thing" right now, didn't you know?! ;) You made a gourmet dessert!
:)Kat

Diane said...

Charisa, meet Kat ;)
She is a sweet lady from Texas who has been visiting Rebekah's and my blog for a long time. She found you on our blogs, I'm sure. :)