One of the things I am looking most forward to as I create the life I want to live is cooking. Cooking is one of my love languages. If I cook for you, I love you!

The funny thing is that, in my old life, cooking was drudgery. My people actually wanted to eat every, single day, (can you imagine?!) and I was generally the one tasked with feeding them. It felt like pressure to come up with meal ideas, buy all the groceries, then either prepare food in advance or come home after a long day and cook. Just no.

So, for mostly the last 12 years I have owned a dance studio, we just grabbed something…late. We ate fast food, popcorn, cereal, sandwiches, pizza, canned soup, tuna. Occasionally, I planned meals and even set up the crock pot from time to time (which made me feel supremely royal and like I had my life together!), but I was never able to be consistent. Mostly, we scrambled… and I don’t mean eggs.

Food was for subsistence, and plenty of arguments could be made for how one should not subsist on Arby’s at 10 pm, but there we were. We were too busy or too tired to cook up a meat and three. Dance studio owners work the swing shift (and also the day shift, usually), and come the graveyard shift, we would rather spend it attempting to unwind than standing in a kitchen peeling potatoes.

And, Y’all, we own a service company that maintains and repairs restaurant cooking equipment. My hubs had likely worked hard all day, sweating under a greasy fryer or dodging roaches and mouse carcasses behind a commercial oven. (We know where NOT to eat!) The last thing he had in mind was coming home and figuring out what to do with thawed chicken breasts.

Thinking about meals, particularly the dinner meal, was hard for a Southern girl who believes every meal should have a meat, a green vegetable, a starch, and a bread. That ridiculous standard, coupled with an idyllic vision in my mind of other families sitting around a farmhouse table laughing and breaking bread together, put me right over. (Y’all…breaking bread… really?!)

But now…as part of the evolution…I am making room for cooking, I’m carving out the time, I’m getting out from under a bunch of stress and tasks, and I love cooking again. As I plan, I get to feel creative and resourceful. As I prepare, I get to be organized and methodical. As I serve, I get to be hospitable and loving.

I get to think about what MY FAMILY likes.  I get to imagine their eyes rolling back into their heads when they taste a bite of my whatever-it-is, and I get to revel in making THEM happy. I get to see them waddle away from THE TABLE with bellies full of goodness and hearts full of memories. I get to laugh with them in the kitchen, give them spoons to lick, and offer them samples to savor. I have even made homemade bread for us to break.

Maybe food shouldn’t be attached to emotion, maybe it shouldn’t fulfill the desire to provide, maybe it shouldn’t be a means to love…but it is…and I’m so enjoying the prospect of cooking again.

I’ve already started actually. We have had some pretty good stuff lately, and I’ll do better to share with you.

Here’s one from this morning…I made a “German Pancake” (some call it a “Dutch Baby”) for breakfast. I found the recipe on Instagram (@tastesbetterfromscratch). It was SO GOOD and made everyone feel all warm and fuzzy, including me, The Cook.

https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/german-pancakes-2/

Note:  I didn’t use a metal pan, because I only have glass 9×13 dishes. If you use glass, be sure to grease it well. I macerated blueberries in lemon juice and a little sugar to serve with it, along with a drizzle of honey.

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