Contrasts In Life

Last night my mum deserted my dad and I to attend a meeting. My dad and I prepared dinner, just the two of us, and we didn't fare too bad. We cooked potatoes, Swedish meatballs, and Swedish gravy, and some Swedish berry sauce. Well, we didn't cook the berry sauce. But even as I cooked it (my dad did the pots), I knew that while it may taste like my mum's food, it certainly would lack that special mum umph. We dished up from the pots. I knew my mum would have taken the food and put it into serving dishes, etc.

This proved true tonight. We had sandwiches for dinner. A simple fare. My mum made the sandwiches, each to our own liking, and then poured the crisps into a bowl. If it was me, I would have just kept them in the bowl, but no my mum has this ingrained sense of hospitality and serving and even if it is just my dad, my mum, and myself the food is still prepared.

My mum and I share many similarities, but a noticeable difference is that sense of hospitality and her ease in the kitchen. She is preparing a chocolate sauce for the strawberries. I watched her -- she pulled in cream - I don't know how much, she isn't much into measuring, the same with the amount of chocolate chips poured in. In contrast to when I prepared the gravy last night. It called for a quarter of cup of cream, and a cup of water - I measured to the exact, and consciensously watched the clock to follow the directions. My mum doesn't. She has this instinctive knowledge of when food is done, etc. When you ask for how long, measurements -- she just says "Oh, you'll know when it is ready... Oh a little bit of that. When it looks right."

The more you do something, the more familar you are with what you are doing. The longer you work at something, the more routine and natural the process becomes. I don't cook, my mum does and because of that she has this natural ability to whip up food that tastes good - even crisps and sandwiches.