The idiots guide to...being an idiot

Throughout this blog I have discussed my mother’s confounding relationship with cooking. Admittedly, I am a pretty bad cook, but I firmly believe this is because I have never really been taught how to do cook anything. Sure, I’ve picked up a cookbook in the past few years, but usually the idea of going to the store just to get all of the ingredients is more daunting than just pouring a bowl of cereal. Recognizing this tendency, my mom bought me The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the College Diet Cookbook when I moved into a dorm my freshman year. Writing this journal entry is the first time I’ve ever actually opened it, but hey, gotta start somewhere!

Obviously, this cookbook is aimed at college students who, like me, have little motivation to cook dinner for themselves. The table of contents is divided neatly into different types of food the typical American college student might want to prepare, such as “Mexican Flourish,” “Grains that Make the Grade,” and “Using your Noodle,” and are accented by cute little symbol the indicating the type of machinery needed to make it. I guess they assume I would own an electric wok and a slow cooker. Go figure.

I happened to flip to a recipe in “Meaty Meals” on how to prepare “Crowd-Pleasing Mac and Dogs $.” Evidently this is a pretty inexpensive meal to make, and will please the roomies as well! Despite this, the ingredients look more advanced than what can be typically found in my cupboards, such as tomato soup minced garlic. The book also instructs me to look for terms in recipes such as meanwhile so that I know to do something else while one portion of the dish is being prepared. I guess they assume women won’t be reading this ;) All in all though, it’s not so bad of a cookbook. All of the recipes look easy enough to follow, even for someone like me who has no knowledge of cooking. I’m still not sure about that electric wok though…