Read Online The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn - Free Book Online Page B

gung-ho commitment. Her pleasant kitchen looked as if it came directly out of a scene from Mad Men, replete with canary-colored retro appliances. The fridge sported an extra door, presumably child-sized, built into the front. “Isn’t this weird? It’s kind of a midget door or something. We want to redo it,” Donna trilled brightly. “But it’s so darned expensive. Sure you don’t want any tea?”
    â€œDo you have any vodka?” I asked, only partly in jest.
    Donna laughed. “Of course not, silly!”
    Donna worked long hours in communications for an international aid organization that helps families in Africa. “We should have two people to do my job, but of course it’s a nonprofit so they just work you to the bone. But it’s very rewarding.”
    When Donna and her husband married, they agreed that he would cook and do dishes and she would do all the laundry. “But now I realize that I can’t rely on my husband to cook, or that what he makes will be healthy,” she said. “He goes back and forth about eating healthy, but when it comes down to it, he just eats what he wants. He says that he’ll be more interested in it as I lose more weight, but right now he’s not much of a good sport.”
    Although Donna dutifully attended Weight Watchers for months, she’d lost only five of the fifty pounds she wanted to lose. She can cite the program’s “points” 9 for anything. But she finds they’re not helpful when eating out, and lately they’ve been eating out—a lot.
    â€œMy husband and I fight to the death about this. He doesn’t eat all day or all afternoon. So he’s supposed to be the cook in the family, but then by the time we’re driving home together, he’s starving. He stops and gets fast food or he wants to go out. Then he snacks all night. He thinks this is supposed to help him lose weight?”
    She revealed that just before they got married two years ago, he’d lost ninety pounds. Since then, he’d gained it all back.
    â€œI guess back then he had to find a girl to impress,” she said wryly. “One reason that I want to learn to cook is because I can cut down on calories all day, but I when I get home from work, it’s like a freefor-all. I don’t know how to cook; it’s not my element, so I am kind of at the mercy of whatever he wants to do.”
    She recently learned she’s allergic to soy, and has long had an unusual reaction to raw vegetables. In the first cupboard, we hit abandoned cans of Slim-Fast. “Oh, right, I forgot about those,” she said sheepishly. “It’s got soy in it, so it’s going to have to go.”
    From the next one, she pulled out boxes for a hamburger-based skillet casserole. “I grew up eating it, so I bought those when we were first married, but my husband hates it because he didn’t grow up on it,” she said. “These might even be expired. I don’t know, does Hamburger Helper have an expiration date?” She examined the box. “November 2008. Funny, I wonder what’s in it that could expire?”
    In the same cupboard she found dehydrated mashed potatoes, boxes of Jell-O, and a block of Velveeta cheese. “This I use for a dip when guests come over. You mix it with a can of chili.” She dug in and pulled out an assortment of spices, many of them duplicates. “Oh, we have three or four of the same kinds of spices. When we find a recipe we buy all the ingredients, not realizing that we already have the same herb or spice until we get home.”
    On a higher shelf, she had multiple bags full of flour, sugar, and other baking goods. “I’d like to think that I do a lot of baking, but I don’t. I think most of the stuff in this cupboard we haven’t touched in more than a year.”
    She moved on. Condensed soup, cans of black olives, kits to make Mexican food,