On Cooking Dinner and Responsibility
This wonderful (read the “wonderful” here with sarcasm) pandemic has had a few good outcomes, like the wonderful (read the “wonderful” here without sarcasm) Yahtzee and Milo. But it has also had many bad outcomes, like the loss, stress, and pain that people are experiencing.
Even though I am lucky, it’s hard to even hear ambulance sirens in New York City, as I know that they are tied to another person’s suffering. I’m also trapped at home with my family and this of course means more responsibility.
I now know many things that I wish I didn’t have to learn, like how to do laundry, how to make and strip a bed, and how to make dinner. That last one is the worst. I mean, I like to cook, but something about it being my responsibility just makes it unpleasant. If I wanted to make dinner and did it on my own, sure I might enjoy it, but the fact that I didn’t have any choice in the matter? Ugh.
Before the lockdown, us kids never made dinner for the family, but our parents, in an effort to compensate for the lack of independence, decided to institute a rule that required us to cook one meal a week. This, of course, was along with a weekly deep clean of the house that we helped with as well as laundry duty and washing the dishes. And we had to work together, as if socializing me with someone who I have known since his birth will expand my horizons.
So, about a month ago, a few days before we were due to make dinner, I looked up “easy 10-minute vegetarian dinner recipe.” Cue evil laughter. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to cheat my way out of anything. Ten minutes just somehow turns into an hour if it’s a recipe we’ve never made before.
Even though I wanted to spring for something easy, my brother wanted to go for something else and since we were making dinner together, we had to both agree on something. He wanted to make lamb chops in the steam oven, being the meat lover that he is. He had been looking through the recipe book that came with the steam oven and decided that he would not stop until he had lamb chops for dinner.
I looked over his chosen recipe and really liked it, with one catch. It said on the page that it might take around an hour and a half to complete. So if we apply the same math that was applied to the ten-minute scenario, that means this recipe would take us nine hours to make. The math might have been off a bit, but I didn’t have a whole day to devote to a recipe.
But Josh (my brother, you might know him from his hotel posts) really wanted those lamb chops. So, we sent the recipe along to the bosses (our parents) for the ingredients to be added to the shopping list.
A few days later, we were ready. We came down to the kitchen fully prepared. We had the ingredients set out on the counter. Josh got started on pounding out the lamb and I got started on the filling. Oddly enough, we weren’t rushing even though we knew that cooking the meal was going to take us a long time and we had to finish it in time for dinner.
We plodded along at our slow pace and came to the point of putting the lamb into the oven. This is where it started to get harder. We tied up the lamb in strips of rolled-up foil because we didn’t have the twine the recipe called for. Turns out that rolled up foil has to be handled gently unlike twine and, spoiler alert, it broke many times before the foil contraption could actually hold the lamb together to keep in the stuffing. After a few tries, our foil seemed to hold the lamb in place.
Problem solved, right? Except that the cooking time was about 30 minutes in the oven and it was getting late. Not only that, but we had to make a second smaller dinner for our father, who doesn’t eat meat. Oh, and clean all of the cutting boards, knives, and bowls we used to prepare the meat.
I set about cleaning up the dishes while Josh started heating up a veggie burger. We both finished in time to take the meat out of the oven together. We pulled the meat out and it actually looked pretty good! We almost thought we had finally finished. Then, we cut into the lamb and realized it wasn’t fully cooked.
At this point, I was already frustrated, and the frustration only grew. The only option left was to pan sear the lamb, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to do it! So, Josh, since this was his recipe pick after all, pulled out the oven mitts and got to work.
It went smoothly and he got out completely unscathed (except for a little burn on his finger). Finally, we could eat dinner!
I sat down at the table, and my eyelids were feeling droopy because it was about time that on a normal night I would be getting ready for bed. We served dinner and at last, were able to taste the fruit (or rather lamb chops) of our labor. I cut off a piece, raised it to my mouth, and bit. It was actually pretty good. If I hadn’t made the meal myself, I don’t think that I would have appreciated all of the effort that went into making it.
I guess this story is just me recounting my woes and sorrows about making dinner for my family, but this particular time taught me a lesson that makes hearing my complaints worth it (in my opinion). I learned that, sometimes, putting in that extra effort can make you appreciate the end result a whole lot more. I’ve stopped looking for ten-minute recipes and instead look for ones that I actually want to cook. It’s not fast and easy, but it is way better! It was hard, but at least I get to enjoy the food more once it comes out of the oven. Since then, I’ve made gyros, farro bowls, chili, soup, and pretty much anything else I want to eat. Something that I think I realized through this whole ordeal is that yeah, having responsibilities sucks, but at least you have tons of freedoms that come with that responsibility!
P.S.
I’ve decided, as a way to motivate myself to cook things that I actually want to eat (rather than really easy recipes) I am going to add a little paragraph, a picture of the dinner, and a link to the recipe that I use on my blog. This is less for you readers and more for my own personal incentive, but I hope that it will inspire you to cook things that you enjoy!
P.P.S.
I made this decision to document my dinners with photos just before writing the above P.S, so I don’t have any pictures of the lamb chop dinner.
