Kitchen Chaos

My Mommy is a very nice Mommy, but she is a very bad cook. When my sister needed to take some deviled eggs to Rainbow Girls' meeting, my Mommy made them. My sister took them to her meeting, but we all knew what would happen. Sure enough, she came back with all the eggs except one. After one person tasted the eggs, no one else wanted to eat them.

That's how my Mommy cooks, and I guess that's how she always cooked. When she was a little girl, she cooked a cake for Grandpa. He did not like it. He said it was not fit for the pigs, and he threw it into the pigpen. Mommy was very unhappy. The pigs would not eat her cake, and every day when she slopped the pigs, she saw the cake sitting in the corner of the pigpen where the pigs had pushed it away. I guess at some point, it just disappeared because it was something called biodegradable. At least, that's what I think happened because years later when I stayed on Grandma's farm, I fell into the pigpen, and the cake was gone.

That’s why we don’t let Mommy cook! Mommy used to scare us. She told us that if we did not help clean up the house, she would cook supper. We really hurried and worked hard to get everything cleaned fast, so that Daddy would cook supper.

We learned to cook, too. I like the way my brother and sisters cook better than the way Mommy cooks. Mommy got mad about that once, though. She had an important visitor. My brother, who was twelve years old at that time, made pot roast for dinner. It was very good. Mommy was very pleased with him until the guest complimented him on his cooking, and he said. "Thank you, but in this house, knowing
how to cook is self-defense."

My mommy's secretary, Jacqueline, was a good cook, though. So, once when it was my birthday, I called her and asked her to make my birthday cake. She said she could not because she would not be home that evening. I cried really hard. I told her that if she did not make my cake, Mommy would! So, Jacqueline told Mommy to buy me a cake. (Whew!)

Every once in a while, though, Mommy thinks that it is okay for her to cook. Once she decided to have a BBQ for all the people who worked for her. That was a good decision, and it should have been and actually was a lot of fun. She also decided that she would like to make braided bread for the BBQ. That was not a good decision, but it was fun. She made the dough, put it in a bowl to rise, and then became involved in other things until it was be time to braid the bread and bake it. While Mommy was working on other things, the doorbell rang. It was her secretary, Irene, who had come early to see if she could help with anything. Mommy thanked her and assured her that everything was under control. Irene did not believe her, though, because she could see some white stuff oozing out the kitchen door into the living room. It was Mommy's dough! She had left it for too long, and it had risen up and out of the bowl, down the stove, and across the floor. Who knows where it would have run off to had Irene not shown up when she did?

Daddy lets Mommy cook Christmas dinner. I keep telling him not to, but lots of times it has turned out okay. Each time that was a very pleasant surprise. However, last year, it happened! I knew it would. Mommy burned the ham. We could not eat it; there was only a black outside shell—all the inside had burned away. No stores were open, so we all went to a restaurant for Christmas dinner. What can I say? I told Daddy not to let Mommy cook!

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As I promised Great-Granny Grandma this morning, here is another excerpt from Doah's book.