The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn Read Free Book Online Page B

make a lot of casserole-type dishes, which aren’t very popular in my house.” Cue eye-rolling tic.
    Unlike the other cooks I would meet in the project, Shannon did try to plan meals before she hit a grocery store. “My problem is when I’m making up the menu for the week. I just run out of ideas and end up cheating by filling up two days with burritos and spaghetti.” By “spaghetti” she meant a jar of sauce. “Oh, yeah, that’s it. I’ve never made it from scratch. Sauces, that kind of thing, it’s all just kind of beyond me. I buy those or get a seasoning packet.”
    Otherwise, a meal to her included a meat-plus-veggie-plus-starch combination. “I’m not very good at cooking meat. I’m scared to death of uncooked chicken so it’s usually super overdone.” Pork chops are pretty easy, she said, but she usually did the same seasoning every single time, a mix of salt, garlic powder, and pepper. “I try to fit in fish once a week, but it is always a boring night because I really don’t know what to do with fish.”
    She budgeted about seven hundred dollars a month for groceries and meals out. Given they’re a family of five, restaurant trips were a rarity. Her big splurge was a sushi place near her house. “At the beginning of the month, things are good. By the end, the meals get increasingly basic as I try to stick to the budget.”
    I asked about her mother’s remark. “Oh, my mom.” Her cheeks flushed, a wince flashed across her face. “My mother started every single meal with a can of soup. She cooked but she never really wanted me in the kitchen, so I didn’t learn much. I want to teach my kids to cook when they’re older, but since I don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing, what am I going to pass on?” Shannon would occasionally make variations on the stuff her mother had served her, such as Parmesan chicken, sweet and sour beef with egg noodles, and tuna casserole, even though she now considered it “old lady food.”
    â€œI am so interested in cooking, but I find it frustrating. I can’t look at a recipe and conceptualize how it will taste. I can’t figure out what is necessary in a recipe and what can be left out. I wish that I were one of those people who could look at my cupboards and my fridge and just improvise something. Or go to a restaurant and eat something I like and then replicate it at home. I don’t feel like I have the skills to do that, you know?”
    Shannon had the desire, motivation, and time to cook but felt she lacked the core competencies. Like so many people, she didn’t learn to cook from her mother, nor did she learn any cooking skills in school. By contrast, women of her mother’s generation had multiple opportunities to learn—from their own mothers and in high school back in the days when home economics enjoyed a more robust place in the curriculum. She struck me as similar to a frustrated aspiring musician who just wanted to get the scales down so that one day she could riff.

DRI
    â€œWelcome to the hood,” Dri said, spreading her arms wide in a welcome as we walked up the neat path to her well-tended apartment building in the city’s Central District. In theory, this is the “rough” part of town, but in recent years much of it has been undergoing serious gentrification. When there’s a Starbucks on a nearby corner, it’s tough to think you’re in a ghetto, even in Seattle.
    Vivacious and good-natured, Dri had the air of a nervous comic about her. She kept a smile fixed on her face for almost the entire visit. Dri planned to move soon into a condo she had bought in another part of town. “Good-bye, eight-by-six-foot kitchen!”
    Dri was dressed entirely in black, possibly an effort to hide the extra fifty-plus pounds she carried on her tall, sturdy frame. She had recently started hitting