One of the Many Things I'd Never Thought I'd Do

***DISCLAIMER:  I will be writing about my father in this post.  Please note that this is written from my point of view as I personally remember it.  My father would tell you differently....very differently.  But seeing as it's my blog, my point of view is the right one.  :)

In most families (or at least the number of families I've been exposed to) there is a sense of balance in the kitchen.  If one person cooks dinner, the other cleans up afterwards.  If the parents cook then the kids are responsible for washing and drying the dishes (or in this day and age perhaps loading the dishwasher).  Sometimes turns are taken when it comes to the cooking and cleaning.  None of these scenarios happened (at least regularly) throughout the years of my growing up.

My dad was the king of the kitchen.  The kitchen was his domain and no one dared enter without permission.  My dad has always taken great pleasure in the culinary arts and while my mother was always the baker in the family, Dad was definitely the cook.  And everybody knew it.  When Dad started pulling out the pots and pans and ingredients and utensils to start making dinner, everybody knew to stay out of his way.  This never bothered me as a child.  It was just the way things were and I never questioned it.

As I got older, however, I began to take note of my mother's nagging my father to "let the kids help--they need to learn to cook."  And as I got older, I began to want to help my dad in the kitchen.  By the time I was in high school, amongst the school day, homework, extracurricular activities and a part-time job, I didn't see my dad all that often, so helping him out in the kitchen would give me a chance to talk to him, catch him up on how things were going, etc.  Or so I thought. 

The first time I went to help my dad in the kitchen, he set me to chopping vegetables.  "You gotta learn the basics before you can learn the hard stuff," he'd say.  Well, I put in my time chopping vegetables--it was all he ever let me do.  I became an expert at chopping.  Unfortunately, chopping vegetables became the limit of my kitchen experience and cooking abilities.  I finally got sick of being able to do nothing else and so I quit asking Dad if I could help.  I found more enjoyable things to do with my time.

Fast forward a few years or so to today.  I am a housewife and stay-at-home mom and I do not know how to cook.  This creates a bit of a problem.  People always say that girls marry their fathers and in a lot of ways that is true in my case.  Chaz is very much like my father (although both Chaz and my dad will vehemently deny that claim) and he does know how to cook.  However, five days a week he works from 3 to 11pm and is not home to make dinner.  Which leaves me a bit in a lurch.

Five, ten years ago when I would look ahead and picture my life, I never saw myself as a housewife.  Yet here I am.  And I never pictured myself as being in kitchen, let alone enjoying being in a kitchen.  However, I am finding that I take great pleasure in spending time in the kitchen.  I've started looking for recipes that I find intriguing and want to try out.  I taught myself how to cook bacon (ok, ok, I googled how to cook bacon and followed the instructions--and yes, I am aware of how pitiful that sounds).  I have come to enjoy the task of grocery shopping and then putting the groceries away when I get home.

Which brings me to one of the many things I never thought I would do.  Chaz and I have been talking for a while now about the things we both need to start doing to get healthy and lose weight.  So today, I went grocery shopping.  I made a list before I went and I bought only the things on my list.  I came home with NONE of the following items (which not so long ago, say, last week, were very common items in my shopping cart): chips, soda, ice cream, candy, microwavable dinners, frozen pizzas or fried chicken.  I came home with fresh fruits, fresh and frozen vegetables (including a butternut and spaghetti squash which I have no idea how to cook, but speaking of google, that's what it's for, right?), lean chicken, pork and beef, and almonds and trail mix for healthy snacks. 

Upon arriving home and unloading all of the groceries, I proceeded to start rationing out the things that were bought in bulk.  I know for a fact how easy it is to open a bag of almonds or a bag of trail mix and just munch.  And munch. And munch. And munch a little more.  And before you know it, the bag is gone in one, maybe two sittings. 

There are sixteen servings of almonds in the bag I bought.  One serving is 160 calories.  No one, especially Chaz or myself, needs to sit down and consume 2,560 calories at one time.  That's your whole daily caloric intake for Pete's sake. 

So in addition to the groceries, I bought ziploc bags.  And now things are broken down into serving sizes so that Chaz and I can be more aware of how much we're eating and better limit ourselves to how much we take in.  The chicken breasts, pork and hamburger were split similarly with one portion in the fridge for us to cook and the rest in the freezer for now.  And now I'm looking up ways to cook squash and healthy ways to eat chicken and snacking on fresh strawberries instead of potato chips.

I'm getting involved in my kitchen and while I may be a novice at the moment, I am thoroughly enjoying the education!