Chef Boyarduhhhhs

Ooof, I've failed again. I brought my laundry over to my parents house AGAIN to get a little caught up in the "clean clothes" arena. I've straight up decided that I can't NOT do it though. It's so easy. It's so mouse-less. Plus, I like the way my parent's laundry room smells. So fresh, so clean, so lacking of moldy onions (our neighbors keep a bucket o' onions in the basement. It's like they're TRYING to to raise stinky-breathed mice).

I went over there tonight to pick up a form I'll need to file my taxes, but they haven't sent it yet. [Blogger Edit: I'm NOT waiting for the actual tax form, as many of you assumed, because it's 2011 and I do my taxes online.] Allow me to quote the infamous Stephanie Tanner here: HOW RUDE! It's FEBRUARY, people! Some of us who use the whole taxy thingy as our own little savings account need to FILE taxes so we can GET OUR MONEY BACK. I pride myself on filing my taxes every January. But noooooo, not this year. Now I have to wait until God-knows-when for one stupid form. Foiled again, American Tax System.

Anyway, so I hung out and had dinner with my sister Prinna and one of her daughters, Eve (in case you were wondering, yes, Eve is the best child in the world. Better than any child you ever were, or have, or could imagine. Sorry to break the news to you.) We decided to try and make dinner. Prinna and I have the same level of cooking skills (read: none) so making dinner together was, uh, interesting. Me: "Uh oh. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 pounds of broccoli. The bag says 12 oz. Is that the same?" Prinna: "I dunno. Probably. Also, are onions the same as garlic?" Me: "What do I look like? Betty Crocker?" When Prinna suggested going "off-recipe" and adding red pepper flakes to our broccoli, I was really scared. But we both shrieked when we read the notes on the recipe and it said you could, in fact, ADD RED PEPPER FLAKES for more spice! Prinna had gone all rogue, and it turns out, she was right. Touche, Julia Child.

I like making dinner with Prinna. She's funny, she's smart, and she appreciates a good ol' fashioned swear word every now and then. But more importantly, we both suck at cooking, and neither one of us cares. I'm frequently with people who either LIKE cooking or KNOW HOW TO DO IT. People who stare into a food cupboard and make up a meal in their head. People who know when something is missing, or something's too salty. People who know what "broil" means. It's frustrating. I hate being so willfully ignorant about cooking. I'm psycho about timers, I measure every single ingredient, and I will follow a recipe down to the letter even if it means ruining the meal. That chicken looks done? Well, the recipe says it shouldn't be done for 15 more minutes, so I'm going to leave it on. Wait, what's that burning smell? Crap, what's the number for Pizza Luce?

On nights like tonight, when I'm making food with someone who is my equal, I have way more fun. No pressure. No expectations. No superior knowledge that garlic and onions are not interchangeable. It's refreshing. When we were finally done making the food, we sat down and ate. Technically, it could have been a subpar meal, but we'd never know it. It was delicious. I guess two heads ARE better than one. Especially when the combined culinary knowledge of the two heads equals about one teenager taking Home Ec.

I'm pretty sure I'll never be good at cooking. I don't really care. I know how to make pasta and bagels and roasted broccoli, and that's like 90% of my diet, so I'm set. Plus, as soon as I can find person who can write a decent recipe for idiots like me, I'll be just fine. I'm also kind of assuming that food will start to be made available in pill form sometime in the near future, so what good will cooking be then? Answer: No Good.