I can't cook. I hate to admit it, but it's the sad truth. Well, maybe not entirely. I did go through a few phases of cooking, one of them being with eggs. Yes, I was a connoisseur of omelets and proud of it. I would pour a carton of egg beaters into a pan, ever-so-gracefully, and chop onions, tomatoes and mushrooms, sprinkling them perfectly on one half. I was able to effortlessly fold the other half of the egg over just right and, voila! All my roommates were quite impressed with my new-found skill.
Time passed and I continued down other avenues of egg. I made bagels with egg, cheese and ham; egg, cheese and bacon croissants; and the traditional meal of over-easy eggs, bacon and toast.
Needless to say, this got pretty old after a while and my roommates no longer reveled in the magic of the egg (or the rancid gas it induced).
I needed a new specialty.
I thought something more complicated and sophisticated like eggplant parmesana would be a great replacement for the infamous omelet. Somewhere between pouring flour in a bowl and coating the eggplant with egg whites, something went amiss. My eggplant was nothing but squishy globs of vegetable amidst a sea of store-bought marinara sauce topped pathetically with the crusty remains of parmesan from my fridge. My friends insisted it was great, but I knew better.
Lately, my roommate and her boyfriend have been cooking gourmet meals at our house, which inspired me to revive my cooking \talents."" I took it upon myself to make filet mignon with a side of green beans and boiled red skin potatoes. Since we don't have a grill, and the George Foreman was covered in some unrecognizable sticky substance probably from freshman year, I decided to improvise. I I took out the frying pan, doused it with Pam and was ready to impress.
Well, the potatoes ended up tasting like garlic coated rocks and the steak tasted like some gourmet dish one could find in the high school cafeteria line. But at least the green beans turned out ok.
Despite my bad luck (and non-existent cooking skills) I refuse to give up. My roommates will have to suffer a few more (okay maybe 50 more) bad meals until one day I become a genuinely good cook.
Maybe my next specialty can be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Kat is a junior and can be reached at krpeterson@wisc.edu.
