I WILL learn to cook!!!!!

I have always felt like I was a good cook. I enjoy cooking and creating. I even took a cooking class in Italy the one summer I lived over there. However, it wasn’t until I met Michael that I became aware of how not good at cooking I was. Now granted that makes it sound like Michael has convinced me of this without it being valid. (Side Note: Michael is an excellent cook! He just picked it up from having good cooks in his family his whole life and working briefly with a catering service. I have learned more just from watching him cook – sans recipes of course – than I have from any other source.) Sadly, the truth is he is right. As much as I love to cook – I am not very good at it. I don’t even really know the basics of it. So basically what I have been claiming as “cooking” is really the ability to follow instructions, i.e. a recipe. And lets be honest – I wasn’t really even that good at that. I would always add a little of this and a little of that, not really knowing what I was doing, and most of the time it would come out edible, but not necessarily good.

So it is now my life’s mission to become an excellent cook. I don’t really have the desire to be some gourmet chief or anything, I just want my grandchildren (many many years from now) to think that their grandmother is the best cook in the world. And for Michael to think that the best dinner comes from my kitchen, not some overpriced restaurant.

Anyways, back to the mission at hand. After seeing the previews for Julia & Julie, the movie with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep, I decided that the concept of that movie was a GREAT idea!! Now, as I said before, I have no desire of being some amazing gourmet chef, so the whole Julia Child’s thing was a little bit out of my league. For a more realistic approach, I am going to complete the entire Better Homes and Gardens “Anyone Can Cook” cookbook. This is a step by step cookbook/manual. My thought is that I should probably start with the basics, get those down, and then I can advance on to more intense things – like maybe a Julia Child’s recipe or two!