Cooking and Birthday

"When I retire I can cook." One of my famous statements about retirement. So since I have retired, I have cooked. The key to the first sentence is you need to know how to cook before you retire in order to have much success after you retire. Cooking has never been one of my strong suites and as Jim is experiencing....it still isn't. Mama always said I had too much fun outside to want to spend much time inside trying to learn all the "domestic" duties of a good wife. And now, I have too much fun doing everything else to spend much time trying to learn all the "domestic" duties.

During September I ordered Jim a shofar for his birthday. Wanted to give it plenty of time to arrive since it was coming from Israel. Seven days later it arrived forcing me to keep a secret far longer than I wanted. I had been contemplating giving it to him early because all the Fall observances would be over by his birthday and besides I was itching to give it to him but needed a really good excuse not to wait until his birthday. Then he asked if I could borrow Merle's shofar and I had my excuse. About a week later he asked if I had talked to Debbie about borrowing the shofar and I told him I had it covered and the day before Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah) I gave it to him. So he had it for the trip to Kentucky, too.

At various times during the year Jim will start a campaign trying to get me to make a "home made" coconut cake. I usually do the cooking by purchasing a Pepperidge Farm coconut cake. (They are very good by the way.) And when that is gone he renews his campaign for "home made." Now I have time - I can cook and so......I tried my hand at "home made" coconut cake. I bought cake flour, coconut milk and flavoring, and even shred coconut for the icing. When the big day arrived I spent the morning preparing the cake:

It looked just like I made it. A Charlie Brown cake. It tasted pretty good but still not Pepperridge Farm quality.

We returned from our Kentucky trip the Friday before Jim's birthday and with the cold he had contracted he didn't feel like celebrating so we put it off for a week. He then requested COOKED (not instant-doesn't he ever learn?), chocolate pudding for his birthday celebration. Now one week later I am back in the kitchen...cooking pudding this time. I learned a very valuable lesson this day.....you can boil milk on a medium stove setting. Who knew? My motto has always been...Only cowards cook on low....but pudding calls for medium and low temperatures (of course it seemed to take all day). But I was determined to follow the manufacturers directions. Surprisingly the pudding turned out quite nice.

Since then I have made a couple of main course dishes, cooking low, that have been quite tasty. I'm getting it - the secret is low and slow and now that I have time maybe I can cook... (Jim says don't be hasty or too excited yet!)