Honest to Goodness Cooks and Fakers

I read this post, about killer tater tot casserole, by Paula Deene via Boomama, and she mentioned that she didn't know what browning sauce was, so she left it out.

It's not at all unusual for me to read a recipe and have no clue what an ingredient is, or a technique, and just running across either of them usually tells me to steer clear because I'm out of my league. Best to stick with chili dogs, or tuna casserole, or crockpot pot roast where I recognize the ingredients and can handle 'open can' or 'boil weiners'. Actually making a prime rib, or anything with phyllo dough, or something where I have to check the freshness of fish eyes, well it's just never gonna happen in my kitchen.

I can cook - I do cook, evidenced by the fact that my family didn't starve to death yet. I even like to cook, I just don't C.O.O.K. like Boomama does. If I have to ask at the grocery what something is or where it is, it's not for me. Chili dog sauce and weiners are pretty easy to find, as are cans of tunafish. They're close to the jars of Ragu and instant mashed potatoes if I remember right.

So it truly shocked me to know something about cooking that Boomama didn't. For a few minutes I got all hotty totty and was impressed with little ole me, til I was slapped right between the eyes with the why.

My homemade gravy is lousy enough that it needs this ingredient to turn it a color that is palatable enough folks will eat it, versus that murky tan color I come up with when I attempt to make homemade gravy once or twice a year.

Obviously the only reason Boomama doesn't know what it is - she can C.O.O.K. circles around me. I like it when God does that, humbles me right back, safe and sound, into the little corner where I belong, that corner full of people who buy those jars of gravy at Thanksgiving and Christmas, hide it at the back of the pantry shelf, and sneak it out while they're 'cooking', so nobody will know the truth.

Faker, that's me. Woman in aisle 9 with the 'browning sauce' hidden at the bottom of her cart. Here I am. I swear if I'd gone Baptist about 40 years ago I might not have such a sad cooking story.

When I die and go to heaven, if we eat then I'm all about signing up to eat at Sophie's place, and she's totally going to be cooking there - the way she talks about cooking, it's clearly a spiritual gift of hers. No more chili dogs or tuna casserole for me once I make it past the pearly gates. I'm standing in line, even waiting for her if she didn't beat me there, for at least one dish of anything she makes that has bacon as an ingredient or frying as the technique.