What's for Dinner?

A love of cooking is generation skipping in my family. My mother basked in the full-bellied contentment of her guests; the more dishes to wash, the happier she was. The gene leapfrogged right over me to her granddaughter, who has refined heredity with science. My niece knows the precise temperature to achieve tenderness in a brisket and can explain chemically why my sugar free cake experiment tastes disgusting.

As for me, the only time I have achieved culinary kudos was cooking for my great nephews in my RV. I packaged my presentations by prefacing all food with the term “RV”, which added mystique. My RV hors d’oeuvres (white bread, buttered and parmesaned, crusts removed, three minutes on high) sparked a feeding frenzy that looked like a Piñata just broke. Since my groupies were the same little guys who could not wait to assist with dumping the black water tank, I temper their compliment as short of a blue ribbon.


Luckily, my husband is happy to make my dinner. When an engineer cooks, there is predictability. Main and side dishes are planned by noon and executed on time and on budget. At 6:30 pm sharp, the salad will be constructed from a bed of spinach one inch thick, precision cut tomatoes, evenly sliced cucumbers, finely diced red onions, and perhaps a surprise spear of asparagus cut into two inch sections. A modern marvel.