I’m going for my first-ever cooking class end of this month. You heard right: First. Ever. Normally, I only brag about things I have already done, not something I have yet to do because I might not do it and then, I will have ‘no face’ because I’d bragged about doing it to so many people. In this case, however, I reckon I’m pretty safe because I have registered for the class and to make sure I go through with it, have even convinced a friend to do it with me.
When I tell people I’ve signed up for cooking class, I get all kinds of responses. The range is staggering, from high-pitched mocking laughter to the incredulous “You? Cook???” punctuated with, what else, more high-pitched mocking laughter, all the way to the more perky “That’s great! I will so-o-o-o eat your cooking!” I can’t tell if this last group of people are making fun of me but I do know one thing: they are very brave. Some might even say they have a death wish but that isn’t a point I wish to mull over.
I now have two weeks until my first cooking class (whether it’s also my last will depend totally on how my food turns out. That, and how hot I look in an apron), and I shall spend this time doing two things. One is pondering my impending foray into the world of cookery and the other, formulating snappy retorts to some of your tactless responses:
“You? Cook???”
Yes, I don’t cook. It’s not something I’m proud of but in my defence, it’s all my mother’s fault. Let’s put it this way: my dear mother, God bless her, will never survive on a show like Masterchef. She’s done all right by my brother and me (by this, I mean we didn’t die from malnutrition, if that means anything) but she was never the doting mother who’d welcome you home after a day of school with cream-laden cakes dripping with chocolate syrup, golden pastries, buttery homemade bread or an enormous plate of delicious char siew. Instead, it was lots of rice, vegetables and always something that bore some sort of resemblance to chicken. But then again, everything resembled chicken.
“Are you sure? You’re not the cooking type.”
What exactly is this cooking ‘type’ I keep hearing about? Just because I’m not joined at the hip to a stove (that’s the thing you cook the food with, right?) or don’t tremble with excitement every time I walk past a display of kitchen knives, does not mean I’m not the cooking type. It just means that I’m not the type who’s um … joined at the hip to a stove or the sort who trembles with excitement every time I walk past a display of kitchen knives, that’s all.
“But you don’t even eat!”
Contrary to popular belief, I do – on occasion – eat. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here, alive, and writing this blog. I wish you would stop being so dramatic.
“But you’ve never cooked before!”
That’s precisely why I’m taking the class. Duh.
“Do you even know what a kitchen looks like?”
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know what a kitchen looks like. I have seen plenty in magazines and on TV. It’s the room in the house with the refrigerator.
“Hey, you never know – you might discover you have a real talent for it!”
Damn right!
“That’s great! I will so-o-o-o eat your cooking!”
I wouldn’t say this if I were you.
