"Gourmet" Cooking--Laughter is the Best Medicine

Those who have known me all my life are amazed to see how life has changed me over the last few years. In high school, I had goals of being a powerful high-level business executive after college. Six years ago, I was well on my way to achieving this goal and was working in the financial services industry for UBS/PaineWebber. I was graduating from college and had goals and dreams of going places, and then everything changed.

When I married my dh over fourteen years ago, I made a very specific list (or disclosure, as I laughingly call it) of goals and dreams I planned to achieve and weaknesses I wished him to be aware of. One of the things we discussed was me working and him staying him once we had children. The other thing I remember telling him was that I don't know how to cook, I don't want to know how to cook and if you plan on eating when we are married you will cook or make enough money to do takeout every night. lol

After I had my firstborn, I remember feeling devastated when I had to leave her and go back to work. All of a sudden, I wanted to be home with her more than anything. But, neither my husband or I had prepared for this possibility. He wasn't prepared to be the sole breadwinner and I hadn't had any preparation or training for being at home.

But, when life slapped us upside the head a few years ago, we realized that things had to change. We took a leap of faith, and I quit working. We honestly didn't know how we were going to make it financially. But, every month money came in from somewhere unexpectedly. To us, this was confirmation that we were on the right path. Step-by-step we moved forward, baby steps, and sometimes taking a few steps backwards.

We began homeschooling our daughter, who was four at the time. I fell in love with the idea of home education and realized that I never wanted it to change. My daughter was like a beautiful flower blossoming and growing in wisdom and grace before my very eyes. I would miss all of this if I sent her away.

However, even though I was at home all day, I was still not cooking very well. We ate simply--boxed or frozen meals most often, or my husband cooked occasionally. More often than we should have, we ate out. I was insecure with my cooking ability and didn't feel that we had the money for me to experiment and learn.

Which brings me to a year and a half ago. One evening, my baby had an anaphylactic reaction to our meal. (That figures, one of the few times I actually cooked!) We were eating pancakes and eggs for dinner, and all of a sudden our beautiful baby broke out in hives and swelled up. For the first two weeks, we were uncertain what she had reacted to and we lived off of beans and lettuce (which are very unlikely to cause allergic reactions). Fortunately, she was still nursing and that helped. After taking her to the allergy clinic, we learned that she had allergies to milk, wheat and eggs.

Try taking milk, wheat and egg out of your diet and see what foods you have left. Let me tell you, at first, it seemed impossible. It definitely required me to leave my Banquet boxed meals and Stouffer's lasagnas at the store and COOK FROM SCRATCH! SCARY! God really does have a sense of humor. He was determined to make a cook out of me somehow, and necessity motivated me to learn.

The Health Food Store and the Asian market up the street from my house are now my new best friends, and my family is laughing (under their breath, of course in case I decide to throw a skillet or two) at the idea of ME spending hours in the kitchen. The funny thing is. . . I am laughing right along with them.