Cooking and Me

I’m becoming a good Southern girl. I am starting to cook…

What’s happening to me? When I lived in New York, sometimes, very, very rarely, I would cook for myself. If I did cook, it would be very simple. I would buy a cut of fish from the fish market – either tuna or swordfish (not very politically correct of me, I know) and would walk a couple of blocks to my local Korean deli on the corner, Annie’s, where I would usually buy 10 sugar snap peas. The number was not lost on the cashier. “You mus’ live alone,” she would say, “you only hav’ 10 peas. Ha ha.” I didn’t think it was funny.

It reminded me of the last time I bought German sausages at the famous Schaller and Weber on 86th and Second. I asked for one sausage. The man behind the counter started psycho-analyzing me, in front of his other customers, and said: “You must live alone. What’s the matter with you? You are an attractive woman. Why aren’t you married… you must hate men…” And, so on and so on and so on…” At least I don’t have to face that anymore!

When I lived in New York, dinner consisted of dry cereal, dining out, take out or delivery. Most of the time, if I was at home, I would call and have my food delivered right to my door. I wouldn’t even go and pick it up. Why should I? It was free! Pizza from Mia Pizza, salmon curry from Sala Thai, jumbo shrimp from Chef Ho’s, steamed chicken and mixed vegetables from First Wok, fish from La Mia, or tabbouleh, baba ganoush, and hummus from the Falafel House. One phone call from the couch and it would arrive, HOT, 20 minutes later, rain or shine. Now, that was great!

In New York, no one cooks. None of my friends did. Why cook when you are only cooking for yourself and you can get all sorts of delicious, ethnically diverse food. You know, now that I think about it, I lived in my two bedroom, pre-war New York apartment for 14 years and…I never used the oven. Never. I did boil water for making rice and vegetables on the stove top burners, and occasionally I would use the broiler for making my fish, but I never used the oven itself. Never.

Fast forward to today…when I first got to the Low Country, my husband had a housekeeper in the house who cooked. It’s a long story, which I will tell sometime, but she’s gone, which means I’m the one doing the cooking. It’s hilarious! Stay tuned…