Cooking for Others

L'enfer, c'est les autres.

Or so says Sartre. Cooking for others is not quite hell, but preparing a meal for people you like (and perhaps want to impress), is nerve wracking for me. I'm confident in the kitchen when it's just me, but I'm ok with eating crap if I made it. And I'll eat it for leftovers the next day if I made a lot of it (hello, white bean red sauce 11 p.m. "lasagna" last winter). The only thing I've thrown out in recent memory for poor taste was a custard. I don't know why I made it, but I'm guessing I was too lazy to go outside to actually buy dessert and didn't have any dessert ingredients, like flour or something.

I get almost daily practice by feeding my man whatever I think to cook up, and trying out different recipes I find online. He has helpful suggestions, like, "Those things don't really go together," or, "Maybe we should put cheese in that," or "Maybe we should add/not add that extra clove of garlic." I don't get too crazy and I even surprised him with the cheese-less gratin dauphinois from a few weeks ago. I like healthy eating when it tastes like it's not. He didn't know I was making it until about halfway through, and then liked it.

My dad and stepmother make a lot of curries, stir fries & what one might call stews. These are all delicious and spicy, but living with them, I really abhorred whatever was on the table for dinner unless it was roast chicken or pasta (with puttanesca sauce & lots & lots of grated mozzarella). We had a pretty regular rotation of food at my mom's house, and she was great at those dishes - meatloaf, different kinds of chicken, and a lot of couscous, which became a regular fixture (probably around the time she figured out I liked to make it :) ). Comfort food at mom's was taco night. We ate very balanced meals, and I think that's the reason I feel like something's off if I don't have distinct sections of food on my plate. Food was very different at my two homes, and I made it a point to not like my stepmother's cooking, and sometimes my mom's. I was truly a joy to have around! But, I made it a point only until I realized how freaking good it was after going off to college and experiencing Rutgers' infamous Brower Commons. Bring on the random mixture of veggies and sauces, I don't care if my face burns because it's so spicy, I just need some flavor (and no indigestion, please)! This is coming from the girl who would pick out any "bits" from the taco meat mixture, which my mom made with ground beef and a jar of salsa, which has many, many little bits. Dinner took a while on taco night until I gave in and found out it tastes better with the onion chunks.

My two homes had a lot of influence on what I cook now, but I am appalled at how I behaved when I was growing up eating it. There is nothing worse than hearing that what you've just slaved over is not good (and I don't care if it took 10 minutes or 200...after a long day of work, it can feel like slaving, or if it's a particularly effort filled dish, same thing). So, here I am, trying to think up a good meal for my boyfriend's family for this Friday, on a very limited budget for a sophisticated palette (this is not sucking up, they have good taste, plus his mum knows how to cook & does it well). Here I am, fretting, while boyfriend is not, because they'll like it! Whatever it is! Ah, optimism.

And that's the biggest problem. Here's a list of my various meal serving anxieties, and why a glass of wine never hurts in the kitchen (for the sauce...and the cook!).

1. Something gets messed up. The bread doesn't rise. The rice burns. Something is rotten. The possibilities are endless, and terrifying.
2. Recipes you tried before somehow don't work when you need them too. Performance anxiety?
3. I'll forget a key ingredient, like eggs in a cake.
4. As much as I could have planned, I've forgotten that one of my guests is not eating/detests a particular food, and lo, it is featured heavily.
5. No one told me they didn't like chocolate! Berries! Quinoa! I have no substitute!
6. Food poisoning. I'd hate to poison guests. Especially if they are staying in my house, because I probably did just clean the bathroom.
7. Someone will make an unflattering comment about the taste. Look, some food is meant to be ugly, comment away, but I'd deflate if I heard that something was disgusting.
8. The food is bad, and I can't shut up about it. I tend to go on the defensive if I feel at all like someone might do number 7. And if you're not cleaning up your plate, there's something wrong.
9. It takes too long to cook, I didn't have enough time, and the conversation has run dry (along with the alcohol). Nightmare situation.
10. The dish is too fancy, and my guests feel like I'm trying to show off.
11. The dish is too plain, and my guests feel like they're having Thursday night, post-yoga, quick-I'm starving-heat-something-up leftovers.

For all of the above fears (and dinners where one or more eventuality has occurred), I've had some successes. Happy, full friends make up for all of the work, all of the worrying, and all of the money.

We'll most likely choose to do something we've been able to replicate (frequently) in the past. Here's hoping for a satisfied audience Friday evening, and if not, there's always dessert...at the ice cream parlor!