i have a long, fractured history with the kitchen. i don't remember how it started, but always, as a kid growing up in a household with 5 siblings, i remember being teased and given the metonymic nametag "disaster in the kitchen". whenever i heard that phrase, it meant me. perhaps i took this more to heart than it was meant - which is likely, as i was also always "the sensitive one" - and so, my avoidance of kitchens has followed me since i moved away from home.

being a vegetarian until 2 years ago, i never had any cause to deal with meat. veggies, i can do, to perfection (touch wood!). this talent (especially in creating salads) earned me the moniker of "the assembler". my family seems to have an odd propensity for attaching descriptive phrases to others. still, "the assembler" still meant something essential - i couldn't cook. i could bake, for sure - scones, chocolate cake, cupcakes, muffins...even when i made a lasagna - well, that's really assembling layers, essentially. pasta, cheese, tomato sauce, spinach (yes it was vegetarian), repeat, repeat, repeat.

yesterday, for the first time, i cooked meat.

i was really scared the night before. i was planning to make stew, a wonderful beef stew i remember from childhood (when i still ate meat). the stew my older brothers ate and taught me how to mop up the delicious sauce with fresh whole wheat bread - or the biggest treat of all, being allowed to make Sloppy Joes.

i told toni last night that i was scared shitless of making the stew the next day. i was convinced it would be a Huge, Unforgiveable Mess, and he would come home to me shaking and huddled in a corner of the living room with the Stew on the Stove in the Kitchen uttering menacing gutteral laughter from its burnt, inedible state. i would confirm my metonymic nametag and be whisked into eternal history as a truly undomestic and powerless goddess in the kitchen.

the next day i put off making the stew for as long as possible. until i realized with horror that if i didn't bite the bullet and start it now, toni would come home and the stew wouldn't be even recognizable as an existing dish, because i would still be washing the raw meat.

Raw. Meat.

that was the most difficult part. i've never touched raw meat in my life. i still haven't. i used tongs, darlings. TONGS. oh yes. i rinsed the meat, holding it with tongs, put the pieces on paper towel to drain, and transferred the cleansed Raw. Meat. into a saucepan with olive oil and butter to brown. i didn't touch it once.

Not. Once.

sappho: 1
stew: 0

then i realized in a panic that i didn't have ANYTHING ready - seasoned flour to sprinkle on meat? where?! where?!!! - while i had to monitor the Raw. Meat. that was starting to SIZZLE in its sauce of drippings, olive oil, and butter. what if i burnt it?! quick, start the potatoes. wait, start the turnips. WAIT I CAN DO THIS LATER, I NEED TO MAKE SEASONED FLOUR.

i still have to learn the art of timing when cooking. or rather, planning actions in advance to maximize the fluidity of the act of cooking. so you don't have half-peeled, half-washed turnips and potatoes with their skins lying helter-skelter while you desperately pull down spices and flour and grab a fork while whipping around to monitor the Raw. Meat. browning behind your back because you have the Worst Kitchen Ever.

i rent apartments for their bathrooms not their kitchens i think i've explained enough to make my reasons for [fear of kitchens] understandable?

luckily i got the seasoned flour mixed and ready in time to rescue the meat before it burnt, transferred it and sprinkled it with flour. i still think that's weird. but i did it, the recipe told me to and i know the Hand of the Cooking God would have descended and ripped off my head if i hadn't done what was written in the Joy of Cooking. (HAHAHAHAHAHA, JOY! OF! COOKING! HAHAHAHA)

then i started peeling potatoes and turnips and carrots and chopping onions, calling toni a few times frantically ("how long do potatoes take to cook?" "when do i put the wine in?" "I'M GETTING STRESSED!") while peeling potatoes i became temporarily freaked out when some of the ones toni insisted on buying weren't white inside, but PURPLE:

[i will insert a picture of the Purple Alien Potatoe once Blogger gets its Image Uploading Act together]

i put them in anyway but i was convinced at any moment these weird freaks of nature would develop eyes and mouths with tons of pointy teeth that would proceed to chop off my fingers one by one because WHO DARES TO PEEL THE PURPLE POTATOE?

i boiled the potatoes, purple ones and all, steamed the turnips, chopped up the carrots and ate some, and poured in the red wine.

sappho: 2
stew: 0

then i realized I FORGOT TO ADD THE CHILI SAUCE and i frantically poured half a cup in.

sappho: 2
stew: 1

then toni came home and brought with him red wine from australia (yum yum!) and we left the stew to stew.

it stewed and stewed.

it smelled better and better.

then toni said, as we added the veggies, “what about the celery?”

cue frantic sappho running to fridge pulling out celery cleaning it chopping it up and throwing it in.

sappho: 2
stew: 2

it stewed.
i fretted.
we drank wine.
i felt better.

then i cut up some bread and i ASSEMBLED a salad because that’s what i do best, and we served the stew.

it was good.

sappho: 3
stew: 2

but it was a bit too spicy for my taste (because of the chili sauce i used).

sappho: 3
stew: 3
(damn chili sauce).

but:
toni LOVED IT.

sappho: 4
stew: 3

i won. And i can’t wait to try it again next time, with my mum’s homemade chili sauce.

Labels: cooking, food