My worst thing about cooking is….

I wanted to start off by saying “my worst thing about cooking is….” but then I realized that everything about cooking is my worst: the mess, the smells, the reluctant and ungrateful diners, the drudgery of it all, the complexity of it, the incomprehensibility on the unquantifiable ‘a pinch of this and a bit of that’, the inevitable failures….

However, one of my worst things about cooking is how you need a degree in science, an excel spreadsheet and a strong dose of Ritalin to get all the darn parts of the meal to be ready at the same time. I never manage to time the parts of the meal so that they are ready at the same time. And there are only two parts to 90% of my meals. Tonight I decided I was going to calculate EXACTLY when the one had to go in the oven and the other in the air-fryer. As the oven reached the correct temperature, I would put the chicken in and then immediately after that I would put the air-fryer on which takes 3 minutes to heat up and so when that was ready I would put the potato chips (fries) in the air-fryer and set the timer for 15 minutes which means that the chicken would be in the oven for 3 + 15 = 18 minutes, and the chips would be in the air-fryer for 18 – 3 = 15 minutes which means that the chicken and chips would be ready at the same time. All I had to do was shake the basket in the air-fryer every 5 mins or so. Feeling a little smug at my brilliance, I poured myself a glass of wine and switched Hulu on to watch the Melissa McCarthy skit on SNL for the third time (brilliant!). It was all going exceptionally well until after the first shake of the chip basket at 5 mins, I noticed the chicken breasts still lying on the counter. In my exact calculations of the timing, I had forgotten to put the forking chicken IN the oven. Which means the chips were ready 8 minutes before the chicken. So the chips were overcooked and the chicken was skating very close to dodgy.

Shit like this happens every time I cook.

I really, really hate cooking.

Seriously.

Stupid idea.

 

Comments

[Discopitbull]

Right there with you on that! My dad was an excellent cook, and my mom was a partner in a catering business...my sis inherited all of their combined skills, leaving me with the trailer trash genes of our poor Irish and German ancestors. I burn everything, all the time, to the point where our dog was able to walk back his fears first from the smoke detector going off, to finally shaking and quaking even just when he sensed the oven was hot. I hate cooking, the prep time for good, healthy meals feels like an all-day slog, and when completed the dishes never looks like the cook book example, ever. Over the years I've defaulted to "pot meals", like pot lasagna, where I just throw all the sauce, noodles, veggies, cheeses and meat in at the same time and let it stew. Fortunately, both of my sons inherited the "great chef" genes, so when they get sick of my cooking they whip up some fabulous authentic ethnic meal with balanced nutrition and delicate flavors and we all get a break from the flavored glue I generally put out. We need to win a lottery, so we can hire professional chefs.