I’m a foodie, but I hate to cook

Those of you who know me know that my kitchen ability is slim to none. Although I’ve done many dining reviews over the years, my cooking talents are zero. I can describe food and use a number of superlatives to make food sound appetizing, but I’m a clod in the kitchen. I’m even a failure at popcorn.

But I’ve tried to improve over the years without much success. When I was about 27, I attempted to make rice for the first time. I was watching I Love Lucy, which was part of the problem. I laughed so hard that I didn’t pay attention when I poured the ingredients into the pot.  The water started rising quickly, and I suddenly knew something was wrong.

I decided to call my mom for guidance.

“Mom? I’m trying to boil some rice, and I can’t remember if it’s three cups of rice to one cup of water or…”

I didn’t wait for her reply because a moment later, the rice was boiling all over the stove. I realized I’d gotten my proportions wrong, and now the stove looked like an avalanche had hit it. The heat quickly hardened the rice, so I also had the luxury of chipping the crud off the burners and the pot.

I ordered take-out that night.

For my partner’s birthday in 1984, I thought I’d cook her a steak. She was waitressing nearby, so I thought it would be a wonderful surprise to have a nice dinner for her after her shift ended.

I took the partially frozen steak out of the fridge and shoved it in the oven. I turned the oven on to 400 degrees and set the timer for an hour. When my mom cooked, everything took an hour at 400 degrees. Indeed, that also applies to steak.

But I had forgotten to preheat the oven beforehand, so I turned it to 500 degrees. My sweetie was coming home in less than an hour, and I didn’t want the meat to be raw.

While the steak was cooking, I went into the living room of our studio apartment and wrote poetry or some lousy short story. When an hour was up, I got the table ready for dinner.

When she came home from being on her feet all day, I told her to relax and poured her a glass of wine. I set the table, put on some jazz, and served the meat on the plate. Lifeless asparagus didn’t add to my presentation.

It didn’t look like the steak I had imagined from those magazine articles. Mine was the color of an old leather boot. The ends of the steak had curled up into a U-shaped gondola. I think I put some parsley on the plate to make it look prettier and eagerly set it on the table.

She stared at the steak, wondering what it was. I knew that I had screwed up badly. Neither of us could cut the steak. I poured some more wine for her and squirted catsup on it, but it was still stiff. I looked at her apologetically and attempted to feed it to our cat. She wouldn’t touch it either.

We ate at a nice restaurant that night, and from that moment on, I decided that her birthdays were better spent dining out.