What's The First Thing You Cooked For Yourself?
Apropos of nothing, I found myself remembering (not very fondly) one of my first “go-to” dishes. It was “chicken teriyaki,” by which I mean my sophomore year college roommate and I would slice up boneless, skinless chicken tenders, slice up a bag of precut vegetables, throw it all into a large frying pan and cook it to death. In the meantime, we’d microwave a bag of white rice until it was nice and gummy, and we’d pour liberal amounts of teriyaki sauce over the whole concoction. I don’t recall ever seasoning the chicken or vegetables as they cooked. I do recall the taste though, which was flat, sweet, and faintly metallic.
And yet, we continued to cook this depressingly one-note meal and feel like very accomplished adults. I’m unsure which of us conceived of the “dish,” but I do know we found the combo of carb, protein, and vegetable quite efficient and mature.
Cooking as newly independent adults is SO WEIRD when I think back to these years. We’re all just cobbling together stuff we picked up from our parents or home cultures (through osmosis or direct instruction), and sometimes branching out on our own to express our new adult individuality (pasta with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, I’m looking at you)? Or simply stocking our fridge with stuff we never had growing up. I distinctly remember both (plastic containers of) rice pudding and Greek yogurt feeling like legit delicacies.
This wasn't the first thing I cooked for myself, but it was my first epic fail:
I called my mom to ask how to make an apple crumble. She told me the topping called for equal parts flour and butter, and cinnamon. I wrote down "Equal parts flour, butter, and cinnamon."
How I didn't even pause before mixing HALF A CUP of cinnamon into the bowl is still beyond me.
It was inedible.
Circa age six, my dad (first-gen American, Greek parents with a dad who worked/owned diners) started making sure I knew how to cook; the earliest lessons were scrambled eggs (sloooooowly over low heat with tons of butter) and a Greek salad (horiatiki, aka no lettuce, cut with the in-retrospect-not-really-that-big but definitely very sharp knife, to my mother’s dismay). I was so proud when I made it as dinner for my fam! To this day it’s a go-to “lazy” meal, and I think of Dad every time 💙