Rebuilding Rob

Back when I was a Boy Scout – way back when, I decided to earn my cooking merit badge during my first year of summer camp. The remainder of my 10 years as a Boy Scout, I became the troop’s go-to guy simply to create  campfire meals.

My culinary skills resurfaced again, during my subsequent “previous lives“. You know, the time that I was with X1 and X2. Neither of them really liked cooking much; so that task often fell to me I would either grab a cookbook or go onto the Internet and find recipes for things to make. I

There is a great irony to me cooking as I have always been a picky eater. I often made things that I would refuse to eat myself. I did not eat them because I didn’t trust my cooking; but rather because the weren’t very appealing to me. Maybe that’s like the psychiatrist who can’t fix their own this functional family? But I digreds…

My go to-meals was this ziti recipe that I found on the Internet once. I think I watched one too many episodes of The Sopranos, because Toby’s wife Carmella would talk about this zitis that she made. I’m not Italian. I don’t even like pasta very much; but I knew that other people did. So I decided to give it a whirl.

Cooking is an act of creation, in that you are combining a bunch of ingredients, in some cases literally from scratch, and combining them in order to make a sustainable meal. For those who add and remove ingredients at their own discretion, cooking becomes an artistic endeavor.

Like so some other things in life, the act of preparing a meal much instills in one a much greater appreciation for the entire process. You develop a much appreciation for what a cook goes through in even the relatively simple act of preparing a meal. I never realized how far a simple compliment like Wow, thanks Rob. That was really good! goes for whoever is preparing your meal. Prepare a meal for you which they are going to complete their day’s activities. One can appreciate the work that goes into preparing a meal; even if they don’t happen to like the taste of the food.

It’s no longer any wonder to me know how actual cooks frown upon fast food and processed meals. It sounds a little melodramatic to say this, but I think they look at them as a mockery of what actual cooks do. 

Even now, I cringe a bit when I watch reruns of old TV sitcom where there is on-running joke that the mom is not a good cook, or that the dad is an idiot when it comes to do anything in the kitchen – which, in The Idiot Dad Trope can something like eating with a fork. Nine weeks comedies; but it’s really insulting to the entire act of meal preparation.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Sunday is borrowed time
• Teacher Armor and the Saturday Clearing
• The Extra Day: A Ten-Year Memory
• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)

The article “Feeling Carmella Soprano” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.