Domestica

Did you know there was a website called www.howtobakeapotato.com ?

Can you believe I found it because I seriously didn't know how to bake a potato and was looking for instructions on the Internet? 

AND CAN YOU BELIEVE IT TAKES AN HOUR TO BAKE A POTATO!? I'm starving!

Now, contrary to the accusations of my ex, I have always considered myself to be quite a domestic diva. I think I have a knack for cooking - and recently developed the ability to clean up after myself (not just use the "stuff and hide and sanitize" technique of my messy past.) Seriously, I am 26 now. I am grown up. I work and pay taxes and do occasional laundry. I cry at sentimental movies and use an anti-aging cream on my face at night. I am good at being all womanly. But tonight's potato crisis has me seriously questioning my culinary skill.

Here's what I decided: I may have some unobtainable natural inclination toward understanding certain flavors that go good together - think like Beethoven and the piano except for with mixing food stuffs - but admittedly, I am missing a few of the basic steps. I can invent a great cheese dip - MacGyver style with only what's in my kitchen - and bake it in a bell pepper. I can make my own pasta and infuse it with spinach or carrot puree. Brownies from scratch? No problem! I'm the queen of pancakes - dulce de leche and apple pancakes, cinnamon granola spice pancakes, marion berry and white chocolate pancakes, nutella-banana-nut pancakes - and I'm just getting started! I make authentico fish tacos and guacamole - my own fresh salsa and tortillas.  I can even make food for other species' (well, dogs....) But I have to search the internet for instructions on baking a potato!

I think I just started to fly around the kitchen before I learned how to crawl. Like I am ahead of myself. Unfortunately, I might be at the point where it is just too boring to learn the basics of cooking - trivial things like how to make meatloaf or what exactly goes into shepard's pie or how to bake beans to make them "baked beans," just don't appeal to me, I never learned how to do it and don't have the attention span to do so now. I'm too far past it.

Just like the 18 cooking books I have - I find them quite useful in adding color to my counter top, but haven't even cracked the bindings in them! I am not opposed to looking through them for inspiration, but can't bring myself to use them. I think it's because I hate being told what to do just as much as I hate being told how to do something!

Update on the potato crisis: I was starving - after 75 minutes the potato was still undercooked - so I nuked it in the microwave for 90 seconds added pico de gallo salsa and a sprinkling of feta cheese and pepper, and plopped it on the plate with my slightly over-cooked green beans. delish. if ever so devoid of the nutrients which I had hoped to preserve by opting for an oven-baked potato.