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Solo CookeryJune 18, 2006 For most of the last 21 years I've lived alone. Rhodry notes, with perfect justification, that for the last 11-plus years I've lived with him, but you'll see in a minute why I don't think he's part of this particular equation. She Who lives alone must feed herself somehow, and She Whose income is, at best, very modest does not have the option of eating every meal, or every other meal, out. (Homage to Judy Grahn 100% intended; if you don't know the She Who poems, seek them out and read them aloud.) My mother was no cook, and neither were either of my grandmothers. This is one reason I'm inclined to doubt that cooking is a sex-linked trait. However, it may be seen to support the hypothesis that the ability to cook is genetic, and that the gene is sorely lacking in my family, at least in the female line. As for the men, my father is no cook, and I'd swear the same about my maternal grandfather. My paternal grandfather died seven years before I was born, but I'd lay good money down that he couldn't cook either. Over the years I've fed myself pretty well. For this I pat myself on the back. My secret is a slowly evolving repertoire of dishes that (1) make enough to feed four or five or six, (2) keep well, and (3) don't get boring if you have to eat them four or five or six days in a week. These I vary with quick-and-easys, such as baked potato with cheese and salsa, grilled cheese sandwiches (if made with good bread, good cheese, and good mustard, I'd take one of these over a gourmet meal with all the trimmings), and Amy's addictive potpies and enchiladas. Tonight I dined on a cool-weather staple: a stove-top sort of casserole made of onions, lots of garlic, hamburger, green peppers, frozen corn, tomato purée, and egg noodles. A bowl zapped in the microwave and doused with tamari makes a fine, visually attractive supper. However, it occurred to me that I would have to know someone really, really well before I invited her in for the hamburger noodle thing. I often say I don't cook, but that isn't true. I cook -- I just don't regard cooking as performance, which is to say I don't cook for an audience. (Hence the caveat at the beginning: Rhodry lives with me, but I don't cook for him; I just measure out the kibble, chop his two glucosamine pills into three pieces each, hide them in the kibble, douse it all with canola oil, and put the dish in front of him.) The idea of cooking day in, day out for cranky children and a blasé husband is my idea of hell. If I were obliged to give dinner parties, they would all be potluck. My only culinary performance piece is bread. I love making bread. I taught myself to bake bread when I moved home from England at the end of 1975; after more than a year of buying all my bread from local bakeries, I could hardly look at the sliced, shrink-wrapped American stuff. My breads regularly won blue ribbons at the annual agricultural fair until four years ago I moved into an apartment without a kitchen. It's got most of the necessary ingredients of a kitchen; what it lacks is a proper oven. I haven't baked bread since I moved into this place. Over these four years I've been working toward taking another show on the road -- primarily my first novel, The Mud of the Place, but also, secondarily, my life. No question in my mind, the breadlessness is temporary. When Mud is well launched, I will invent a bread in its honor.
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