Chapter 1 - Little Chef's Helper

Like many other people, I learnt how to cook through watching, but having a serious case of "wanting to do things right from the get go" and "not being able to ask for help" as a child, I just lingered around my mom when she was cooking.

And I mean I really lingered, even when she wasn't at the stove, I stayed there, I guess I didn't linger near her, I lingered near the food. Not because of the smell, I'm not a cartoon character that gets pulled by the smell lines of fine cuisine, no, I was just curious!

I remember watching very closely, as my mom went from one side to another, preparing our food. I remember helping, or trying to, grabbing the wrong sized pan and pot to at least try and help, but my mom never swatted me away, I think she found it funny that I wouldn't ask her to tell me what she was doing, so she just did it, in a way that I could watch, without making it obvious of course.

This was when I was 5 years old, I still remember the smell of her cooking, I still remember the enamel pan that she used for cooking, with a pattern that resembled granite, I look back on these memories and take great pleasure in them.

And so, bit by bit, I began picking up a few clues on what cooking really was, at first I thought it was some sort of super power, and later I realized it was all about love. My first ever meal was not made with super powers, but with love and naivety.

It went like this:

I was 7 years old, I was home because it was a Saturday (I remember this because my mom went grocery shopping, which she only does on Saturdays), before she left, she told me: "Get Lunch going alright?" This is translated of course, what she wanted me to do was to set up the table for lunch, but me being the dork that I am (even to this day) I waited for them to leave. After a little while, little old me got his cyan mp3 player and went to work!

I grabbed a glass bowl, a couple of eggs (around 7), bacon, cheese, salt, pepper and oregano (which to this day, I still have an obsession with).

I tell you, I made a huge mess, but I did it! I did my first meal, scrambled eggs with bacon! And the bacon wasn't on the side, inside the scrambled eggs! I remember that I cooked the bacon on a different pan, I don't know why exactly, I think younger me didn't want to contaminate the eggs with the bacon grease? I'll never know.

But after almost an hour (yes almost an hour because that's how long my mom usually took to get groceries) my master piece was complete!

I still remember the look on my mother and father's face when they walked in, grocery bags in hand, they found it picturesque that I was cooking all of a sudden, still, they didn't make a big fuss out of the mess in the kitchen, they sat the bags down, and set the table.

It was alright by my standards today, but back then? It became my favorite dish, my mom even cooked it a few times! Correcting my recipe a little bit, but always telling me that for your first attempt at cooking, I had done extremely well.

That was all it took to get me started on cooking, the key moment that made me realize, that cooking is another way of loving and showing love, because when I was cooking that day, all that was going through my mind was "I'm taking a load off of my mom, I'm going to surprise her by giving her less work!", these were genuine thoughts of love and affection, that I brought with me to every meal that I ever cooked.

To this day, from time to time, I still make those scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese.