The Joy of Cooking

Now, this may come as a shock to many of you (well, not really if you know me), but I've never been much of a cook. When I was in college, I lived mostly in the dorms and I used the dining halls. Then when I finally did live in an apartment, my roommate, Leslie, always did the cooking because she liked doing it. Now, don't get me wrong, I would help her whenever she would let me (I'm really good at stirring things and throwing away trash) and I would do the dishes after the meal. It was an even exchange. Also, back home, my mom never forced me to make any kind of meal. She would offer and I would politely decline and just watch her do all the hard work. So, needless to say that I came to Bulgaria with a lack of cooking knowledge.

Living with a host family, this was never much of a problem because they didn't like to have me help. Occasionally, they would let me chop the vegetables for the salad, but that was about it. Moving to permanent site, however, I found that it was a completely different story. Everyone always asks me what I cook for myself. From what I've gathered, it's strange for a woman to live by herself here (that and the fact that I'm American), so they're curious about everything. When I tell them that I usually just make soup and sandwiches, they usually fling their arms into the air and cry "Oh bozhe!" (which is kind of like a "Good grief!" kind of statement). Clearly they don't approve. Betty has offered to help me in learning to cook and I've helped her a couple times in her kitchen. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I have anything against cooking. I would like to learn one day, that day is just not today...or any other day in the near future.

Anyway, one day last week our Scout group was cleaning up the area behind the block that I live in. I came down to help and when our day's work was done, we were offered vafla (a waffle bar kind of candy) and something to drink from the store on the corner. There's a baba (Baba Mimi) who lives next to this store and she came out and offered Rory and myself jars of homemade lutenitza (peppers and other delicious vegetables made into a nice spread). We gladly accepted them and then she preceded to ask me if I like tarator (which is the cold cucumber soup) because today was the perfect day to make it because it was warm. I told her that I did like tarator because I was not anticipating what was about to happen. Her face lit up and she went back into her house to grab the ingredients for a nice bowl of the soup. She came back out and was giving them out to Rory, Betty and myself. I'm not sure what happened during all of this, but the next thing I know I was being invited over to Baba Mimi's house to learn how to make tarator. I just smiled and nodded (something that I've grown accustomed to doing) and followed Baba Mimi into her house.

We went downstairs into her kitchen and she started getting out all of the ingredients, explaining what each one was as she pulled them out of their spaces. It wasn't long before we were joined by Rory and Betty for more supervision purposes. She began adding everything into the bowl and it wasn't long before it was suggested that I give it a try. My first task was skinning the cucumber. Now, let me begin by saying that I've never been a big fan of knives (I blame this on a late night viewing of the movies "Scream" and "Psycho" when I was entirely too young). So, Baba Mimi hands me the cucumber and a knife the length of my entire forearm and instructs me to begin skinning. I try to the best of my ability to skin that cucumber, but it wasn't long before the knife and cucumber, as well as the task, were taken away from me. Baba Mimi finished skinning the cucumber and then went looking for a grater. She reappeared with grater in hand and instructed me to grate the cucumber. Now, this I can do. I grated that cucumber like I'd been doing it my whole life. I was a professional. Betty, on the other hand, didn't seem to feel the same way. She was nervous that was going to cut my fingers off. Rory reassured me that she'd feel that way about anyone and that it wasn't just because it was me. That made me feel better.

My next task was to add all of the ingredients into the big mixing bowl and start stirring. I did just that. I stirred until Baba Mimi told me to add something. I added and went back to my stirring. I'm not gonna lie, I feel like they were all pretty impressed by my stirring skills (thanks Leslie!). By the end of it, I had concocted a good-size bowl of tarator for my dinner that evening. Baba Mimi put it in a pot so that I could take it back to my house and gave each one of us an apple. I thanked her for the cooking lesson and for the free food. After a few minutes of smalltalk, I walked to my apartment and put the tarator in the fridge where it has sat for about a week. Why is that, you ask? Because I do not like tarator. Had I known that me saying that I liked it would lead to an entire cooking lesson and a pot full of it, I would have told the truth. So the lesson in this story is to always tell the truth, ladies and gentlemen, because if you don't, you may end up with a pot of soup you don't like in your refrigerator.