The Kitchen

True story: when I was in the 8th grade, I had to ask my mom how to use a toaster so that I could complete a writing assignment. In my defense, I knew perfectly well how to use the toaster oven in our kitchen and had no idea that we even owned a regular toaster, tucked into some back corner of the pantry. Mitigating circumstances aside, I was not terribly familiar with the kitchen. In fact, I was pretty anti-cooking, which is hard to explain since my mom is a fabulous cook who never seemed to mind cooking family dinner each night. Anyway, I could barely boil water up until I moved out of the dorms and into a rented house after my sophomore year of college. I was suddenly faced with a dilemma: learn to cook or starve (and the follow up: learn to cook decently or suffer from indigestion or food poisoning). I learned to cook.

Since then, I have fallen in love with occasionally experimenting in the kitchen. (Regular meal cooking is ok, but not all that fascinating when I get home late and am too tired to think about it much.) Over the years, friends have been subjected to bananas foster (Sunday dinner crew at Tech), cornish hens stuffed with cherries and wild rice (Abby), stuffed porkchops or chicken breasts (too many of you to count, really), zucchini boats (Keating probably sees these in his sleep), and endless loaves of banana chocolate chip cherry bread (I'm looking at you Marty -- it's just not that same now that I never find old, black bananas in my office mailbox anymore. And no, Mom, I didn't forget the nuts. I intentionally leave them out.), etc. While I love cooking, I will never be at risk of receiving my own cooking show, and all of my meals come with the promise that if it came out plain bad I will be the first to call for pizza (Andy: do you still have nightmares about that lamb stew back in 2003? I do. Note to others: never cook up something that you find in your freezer when you move into a new place, even if it was left there by a kindly older couple.).

Moving to Mexico has provided me with exciting opportunities to try new ingredients and cooking styles. A couple of weeks ago, I made parmesan breaded chicken breasts stuffed with apple and goat cheese. Fabulous! A couple of nights ago I made pork chops with a lime sauce. Edible! For Christmas, I stuffed a turkey with tropical fruits (some of which don't even have names in English) because I couldn't find what I wanted for "real" stuffing. The turkey was awesome, the stuffing inedible. We have been through tacos, quesadillas, rice, and appalling quantities of refried beans.

While I'm enjoying the challenges here, every meal must still be approached as a contest of wills. Every day, I must challenge The Oven.

Mexicans apparently don't like cooking with ovens. Most food around here seems to be prepared in a skillet or something similar. It took me a couple of weeks to even find a mixing bowl for less than the cost of my firstborn child, and oven-safe bakeware appears to be a local joke. Nothing related to oven-use even came with our otherwise fully-furnished apartment.

I have learned why.

The Oven is...fussy. I don't believe the temperatures on the dial (why should I? The burners on the stove operate at "on" and "off" and don't even bother with gradational marks on the knobs). I knew I was in for a battle when Keating and I toured the apartment before we moved in and our landlady showed us the pile of matches she had provided. The Oven must be hand-lit. Instantly, my head was filled with visions of exploding my kitchen, or at least burning off my eyebrows. That Christmas turkey mentioned above? It was pretty much a miracle that it came out ok after I succeeded in launching a fireball 2 feet out of the front of The Oven while trying to preheat. Keating, who missed the fireworks display, had to calm me down and re-fire The Oven.

No meal in our apartment comes without the risk of becoming Dinner and a Show. I think I've mastered the art of lighting The Oven, but I still get a little nervous every time I have to do it. I would give up on The Oven, Mexican style, but for one thing: the grocery store sells brownie mix. Keating and I have committed to making brownies to celebrate my first paycheck down here (yes, that's right...6 weeks on the job and still no paycheck or ID card to allow me into the building). Wish me luck. Because when that paycheck comes in and I attempt those brownies, they'd better come out ok. That's one battle that if The Oven wins will really ruin my day. And I might just have to get even.