cooking-impaired

Holidays can be stressful for me, the number one reason being that they tend to revolve around food--and I don't like to cook.

I won't go into all the reasons. Just suffice it to say that food just isn't a big deal to me. I don't live to eat--I eat to live. So spending days shopping and preparing for the food-a-thon, standing for hours in a crowded kitching slaving over the meal, then cleaning up and recuperating for weeks after the feast . . . well, it just isn't my idea of a good time.

But the Lord has blessed me with three daughters who all have inherited their culinary skills from Greg's side of the family (not that he cooks, but both his parents--and all his siblings--could put on their own Food Network show). Lindsay isn't just into cooking--she's all about presentation--so any eating occasion presided over by HRH becomes an epicurean event, instead of a simple meal.

I think I drive her crazy in the kitchen. Yesterday, she was constantly looking over my shoulder, making sure I was using the right ingredients (were they organic and locally grown?), giving the proper attention to presentation (the whole cloves had to be arranged just so on her organic pumpkin pie), and of course, precise preparation (we made green bean casserole from scratch this year!).

And I never have proper cooking equipment. Most of my pots and pans come from Goodwill (although my in-laws, bless their hearts, try to re-stock my kitchen every Christmas). I usually seem to lack the one ingredient necessary for the success of any dish (for example, I ran out of white flour and had to use whole wheat for the rolls I made yesterday. They turned out so dense and dry that SurvivorMan could have used them as fire-starters--or weapons).

Lindsay has learned to bring her own equipment and ingredients, but my kitchen can be kind of a shock for first-timers who care about culinary things.

I felt a little sorry for Lindsay's boyfriend, Nich, and his mom yesterday. Both are accomplished cooks who cheerfully braved my small and ill-equipped kitchen to help prepare our Thanksgiving feast. My major contribution to the meal was staying out of the way--or pretending to look for requested items that I knew I didn't own (meat thermometer, turkey baster, etc.)

But the meal came together somehow, and 15 hungry folks wolfed down that feast in about that many minutes! And even though I'm not a huge fan of gluttony, I must say that was about the tastiest, most attractive--and healthiest--Thanksgiving ever.

And as I stated during our time of giving thanks at the table yesterday--I am very grateful for wonderful daughters (and their spouses/boyfriends/etc.) who can cook!