I am jealous of my kids. It’s not because they get to play sports every day or can take three bites of ice cream and feel full or even their ten hours of sleep each night. Nope, I am jealous of their homework. I covet their list of assignments, their notebooks with separate folders and their nightly reading; it makes me miss school. It has been many years but my inner nerd hasn’t faded. And sadly, though the PhD is a bucket list item, depending on the day, I am not headed back to school any time soon.
My friend Shari has a great blog called My Judy the Foodie (I shamelessly linked to the post where she asks me “is homemade healthier”). She’s teaching herself to cook using her mother’s recipes. It occurred to me that, in a way, Shari has created a cooking school for herself with her mother as her teacher. Shari is a great storyteller and readers follow her buy a Dutch oven, plant an herb garden and make her first holiday meal. As I’ve watched Shari learn and grow I’ve done what any friend would. I’ve grown jealous of Shari too.
I miss the challenge of entering new territory and gradually gaining proficiency. I even crave the inevitable fumbles along the way. I cook, you see, but I keep to my comfort zone. As a parent, I encourage my kids to try new things. I nudge my non-cooking clients to use their ovens and try easy recipes and then go home and whip up my old, reliable ones. So rather than sit here and let my jealousy surge, I thought of a solution. I’m assigning myself homework. In the next month (deadlines need to be realistic) I’m going to:
- Buy a new slow cooker and use it
- Bake at least once; while I cook I’m baking illiterate
*For extra credit, I’ll make at least 1 dish without a recipe if I’ve completed #’s 1 and 2.
I’d love for you to join me and assign yourself homework too.
Don’t be a slacker, what’s your cooking homework going to be? Can you pick one ingredient or type of cooking you’d like to tackle in the next month? In my school copying is fine so feel free to try one of my assignments. Oh and anything you’re jealous of? You can vent it here.
