The missing ingredient and missing gene

I think I have worked out the secret to my mum’s famous lasagne - it must be the cream on top. 


I love food – but I am in no way a foodie – I see food and if it looks good and smells good it will most likely taste good – and if someone else prepared and cooked it – it will definitely taste great.  


The only way food prepared and cooked by someone else could possibly taste better is if they also wash up afterwards.


I am not one of those people with a talent for picking out the hidden or secret flavour that a real foodie can taste.


I am a professed calamity in the kitchen – I do what I need to in order to get by – but I am still waiting for the bolt of lightning to strike me with not only a gift for cooking but to show me how to enjoy it.


I buy recipe books – because they look good in my kitchen.  I buy nice cooking appliances and utensils to decorate my kitchen – hey I even have lovely aprons – but I don’t use these things.


My Husband told me in our early courting days that a guy should never marry a girl unless she has cooked him a baked dinner.


I eventually got around to baking him a dinner (once) – however for the record it was after he had proposed and he did eat it and enjoyed it (lucky for me, otherwise we may not be married now).


I think one of the hardest things about having a child is having to prepare meals – the rest is a piece of cake! 


In our pre child life – we used to eat out nearly every night – and I don’t mean take away – I mean go out to a nice restaurant and be served a meal and have them wash up afterwards.


These days I am trying to be clever in the kitchen and find ways of disguising vegetables in meals, for my daughter, while still trying to make the meals taste and look appealing.


I am so hopeless at cooking that I have even managed to burn the lasagne that was so kindly made by my mother.  Instructions were to put it in the oven for 30mins and then put the cream on top 10 mins before serving.


This is the gene that I missed out on – I spend my working days writing processes and implementing them and ensuring they are followed – but give me a recipe or instructions to follow in the kitchen and I am a disaster.


I think my problem is multi tasking – I am always trying to cook in between things or get distracted with talking or doing housework or looking at Facebook.  So what always starts out well normally ends in a burnt meal or a meal minus an ingredient or two. 


I would much rather clean than cook – there I said it – it is true – but I am going to make it my mission to become the Masterchef of my kitchen – it is no longer just somewhere to decorate and clean – I am going to acquire a talent for picking out the taste of lemongrass and following a recipe and include all the ingredients!

Now back to the burnt lasagne, even a novice like me can detect that from my forgetting to buy the cream for the top of the lasagne it would have tasted better with the cream - it may have even stopped me from burning it.