I was able to cook something in the crock pot that was edible and this is why that's a big deal.
I told you the blog was simmering as was my soup! Now to preface: I don't cook. When I say that, I don't mean it in some flippant way. I actually do not cook. I can make an epic sandwich and salad, true, but outside of anything that comes with 3-step instructions in a box, I have mastered very few dishes during my time on earth. I am the person that burns rice, and watches that Friends episode where Rachel talks about following the recipe, "If it says boil 2 cups of salt, you just boil 2 cups of salt!," and I'm too afraid to ask if that is a real thing or funny because it is so not.
I grew up with both parents until I was about 12. My dad was domestic. My mom was and is not. My mom shopped and made sure we appeared to rank in some kind of white collar status that she was raised to believe was of utmost importance. My dad was the guy up at 5AM on Thanksgiving making legendary pies. The only thing I ever recall my mother making was lasagna, and I think she literally just put it together but my dad did everything else. I rarely remember her even eating much, let alone cooking. But my dad was planning dinner over his bowl of Total cereal at 7AM, every morning.
My dad and I didn't have bonding activities where I learned things so much. Rather, I just got told what not to do or what I did wrong. We bonded over television shows and cynical humor. My mom was only nice when she bought me things, and then if I exhibited any shred of buyer's remorse, like "Maybe that sassy shirt was a bad idea for a Catholic school girl with no self-esteem," I became an "ungrateful little shit." Terms of endearment.
When I was in therapy and dating my then-chef-boyfriend, whom is now my chef-husband, one of my depression group homework exercises was to try something new that would give me a sense of accomplishment. Bonus points if it included others. I wanted to make spaghetti sauce with real veggies and tomatoes and stuff. I did this with Eben's prep help and supervision, but had to follow the recipe and do the watching myself, and I was able to feed the house that evening. It came out well.
Besides occasional peeks over my dad's shoulder, I had one slutty friend in high school show me how to make scrambled eggs when I was 17 so that was a big day. I need to name her, "slutty friend," because all other lessons were merely tales of her sexual triumphs at the ripe age of 16, random how-to's, as laid out by Cosmo, and then where to get thongs on sale if your mom wouldn't buy them for you. The scrambled egg lesson stuck, all other lessons would be for other blog entries or perhaps a conversation accompanied by alcohol.
Other culinary lessons came from my middle sister. I spent a lot of time with her my first summer in Oregon, mostly because my dad didn't know what to do with me. She taught me how to make grilled cheese with my favorite Oregon cheese and my go-to for all shared mornings hence forth, French Toast. The french toast was fun because we always got epic bread to slather in the eggy mix. I remember my nephew thanking my sister for making it and my sister saying, "Nope, that was Aunt Ali." His response, "Nuh, uh, no way!," will forever be my cooking mantra and one of my favorite moments with him.
My grilled cheese triumph was immediately squashed when I offered to make my dad one in a, "See I learned things," way and he shamed me for the use of too much butter. "Nevermind," I shrugged as I channeled Eeyore in my response. Beyond that as soon as I found Eben it was like, why learn? I had someone who could always make it better.
In her infinite wisdom, one of my favorite women and ex-employer, "Totally Tess," had warned me that one day I will want a real meal that I will be forced to create myself, and I will find all the shit in my pantry and have a recipe in hand. With a kid by my side I will be so desperate that I will make it. She told me one day it would happen. And damn, she was right!
This was NOT my first time with the crock pot. To be fair, all other experiences were not-so-awesome because my usual theory with cooking is, "It will all end up in the pan together anyway, what difference does the order make?" It was those little details that always made something less edible. That, and my basic and general misjudgment on the effects of heat. I butchered some chicken recently and now my friend will only pay for me to eat out, or cook for me himself.
So, this recent crock pot exercise could have been some spasm of all things previously hindering my culinary explorations but I'd like to say it's just one big exercise in confidence during a depressive episode. After a row of miscommunication and frustration I decided to find an attainable, easy to understand, uncomplicated recipe that I couldn't really mess up and it happens to be soup season. Much like Jerry Seinfeld had noted in a few episodes of his iconic show, soup is just always good, but I often feel awkward ordering soup in Florida in July. Since it is widely accepted as soup season, I thought, why not. Chicken Noodle Soup, here we come!
I enlisted my 4 year old's help because, as Daddy's sous chef, she actually has a much better cooking understanding than myself, and loves to help with things like that. I followed most of the directions closely so as not to mess up any kind of balance and ruin everything. I got all the ingredients myself at the store and did all the prep in the order of the recipe. It came out edible, edible enough that even the 4 year old volunteered to eat her creation, "except not the onions, mom." She got an onion and celery pass.
It wasn't that it was "so impressive that I made it," but that it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I come from a long line of people who can plan amazing things and nothing ever comes of it. We fail to make those ideas realities. I like to say my half sisters and I are highly intelligent and creative underachievers. My dad likes to scoff because he paid for those under achievements. Mostly, for the soup, I was proud for following through on a plan that was a few days out in the making. Do they call that meal planning in adult life?
This triumph followed a huge marital miscommunication about shelving. As a bit of a background, my dad built 3 houses in his lifetime, all of them still standing. I was that 7 year old girl who wanted a tool box and got one complete with real, actual tools. I learned how to use them properly and spent many days nailing wood scraps onto other wood scraps as my dad built a deck, a screened-in porch, a play house and a basket ball court for me over my 13 years as a Pastor's kid in Pennsylvania. Some of my building visions came without me knowing the terminology, but just being able to pick out what I needed in the hardware store by finding it and forming ways to make the vision a reality. When Eben and I were dating I displayed this once and he was astounded that I knew my way around the hardware store. To this day, I love going to Lowe's and Home Depot as I feel like it is a haven of possibility and creativity.
So, when I gathered a bunch of wire shelving pieces from my last job failure I knew you couldn't just grab a kit at Lowe's and manifest a Closet Maid ad. It would be a little homemade and rigged for necessity. It would require creativity. This is where my Eben and I just disconnected. I lack the vocabulary and have only the vision. And when it comes to ideas, I can Pinterest with the best of them and come out feeling strong so I thought I had planned it all. My understanding was clear. And when we started assembling, Eben was worried about stability. My idea was to reinforce later, for now the budget on the project was already more than I had planned to spend. He disagreed on timing and conveyed it was a no go with what we had on hand.
Now, part of being the head-case that I am with depression, anxiety, PTSD and the #MeToo situation looming, which I'm sure will make an epic blog when I can better understand my feelings on the incident, is that small things in the eyes of the normal folk can be huge things for me. So devoting an entire day to a project promoting productivity and order for my manic mind, only to find out it will not be done without more money and more stress than anticipated caused a pretty big mental collapse. It's honestly very tough to explain adequately. So, after a rough few days I pulled myself back up with plan B, one in which I would do solo.
I realized we had a saw --that had never been used-- scrap wood, and drywall screws. It didn't have to look pretty. It had to be functional. In a rare burst of Rosie The Riveter confidence, I started sawing with the hand saw to cut the pieces I needed to secure the shelving. The rest came together with up-cycled crib pieces, zip ties and nails. This was my house. I don't care about holes, I wanted a functional creation! So after I put Luna to bed, and still in my work clothes, I attacked all of these half-pinteresting ideas and made my vision a reality. By the end of that evening, that was when I decided to crock pot something because after my closet masterpiece, what could I NOT create? Let's be real. I was a frigging rock star!
I love how all of this was fueled by a huge mental breakdown. Perhaps I should lose my shit more often. Creativity awaits. I was even more validated in my closet success when my 4 year old said, "The shelf looks good mommy, let me show you!" She walked me back into my closet and said, "You did good mommy! I like it!" That was all the acceptance I needed really. And I carried that excitement the rest of the week and got her to go to the store to help me get all the soup stuff and told her I needed her to help me get it all ready.
So the soup is a big deal. This is me, sifting through the mania, the broken pieces and the "unstable" moments to grow and get better. Life is so often very heavy, no matter how good you have it. And I spend so much time just praying for my perfect little girl to never end up a mess like her mommy that if I can redeem the bad mom moments by showing her that I can actually do many real things, that I can comfort, create and am capable than more than I even acknowledge myself, it can't all be that bad! And yes, Daddy will always make food better, but mommy also knows where all the best restaurants are in the area.
Big deals are good for my anxiety-riddled soul. Small accomplishments can be very large wins. After my last blog installment, I was very humbled by those that reached out to me about their struggles with the same mental hurdles. It was such a comfort to feel less alone, and to know that some of the most "together" people I admire most had the same "irrational" fears and ideas. And maybe this is part of my calling, just to open up about the crazy and embrace anyone who needs a hug and gets comfort from how much fun I can put into the dysfunctional. I am incredibly broken and flawed, but I might be the most amazing train-wreck you'll ever see at the station when you really get to know me. Soup's on! Who's coming by for dinner?
