Wednesday
Sep022009
Recessive Genes
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 2:35AM | Mr Lady
I am really nothing at all like my mother, which is convenient for me because I hate that woman like she's a member of the Judean People's Front, or still uses Internet Explorer. I don't look anything like her, I don't sound like her or walk like her or write like her or anything. Of course, I haven't seen her since 1992, so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that I'm off the hook on this one. Except we do share one little quirk....we cook alike.
I say this as if my mother ever cooked, which she didn't, but once or twice a year some Church Royalty Dude would come through town and she'd offer to host him (Yes, him. Always him. Fucking patriarchal cult) at our home for a meal. This would be the one day a year when we ate real food. We loved Church Royalty Dude, because he meant hoagies and Pepsi.
She always cooked something, because she believed that if you had a guest, you cooked, and yes I totally got that trait from her, too. She'd make these amazing, complicated dessert things, or whip up a stew, or make some sort of salad or dip or something and it was always great, always from scratch, always seriously complicated, and she always did it effortlessly. Maybe she'd just stored up a years' worth of energy in her ass, I don't know. What I do know is that, though she didn't, the woman could cook.
You could just never, ever ask her to heat up a tv dinner. That thing would resemble a brick in a war zone by the time she was done with it. Ask for macaroni and cheese? You might as well call the CSI people to help you find it later. She couldn't make anything easy, ever; she just didn't think that way.
Guess who inherited something from her mother after all?
When I buy Kraft Dinner for my kids, I have to buy four boxes because I will, without a doubt, burn or boil to mush the first two boxes without fail, every time. Once, my kids' godfather's mom had 1of3's birthday at her house and asked me to bring ice cream sandwiches, just ice cream sandwiches, and I can't even being to think of the words I'd need to use to describe the monstrosity I brought to her house.
I cannot make cookies. COOKIES, PEOPLE.
I can bake anything. I can make the most complicated pastry, but not a chocolate chip cookie. I can bake the most amazing beef roulade you'll ever put in your face, but ask me to make a simple pot roast; go on, I DARE YOU. I can make homemade green chili that will make you cry out to the virgin Mary for mercy, but this one time I tried to make a homemade marinara and yeah, we're still having nightmares about that one.
I once made a fantastic meatloaf and cooked it on a styrofoam tray. I wish I was kidding.
I couldn't have inherited the green eyes or the jet black hair or the perfect fingernails or the nose that didn't look like a coat hanger, oh no...I had to get her mad kitchen skills. Thanks, really. On the upside, I'm not batshit crazy and I have had sex since 1981, so I'll live with my refrigerated cookie dough and take out chinese and call it even, I suppose.
I'd have really liked that black hair, though. I mean, look at it.
Bitch.
I say this as if my mother ever cooked, which she didn't, but once or twice a year some Church Royalty Dude would come through town and she'd offer to host him (Yes, him. Always him. Fucking patriarchal cult) at our home for a meal. This would be the one day a year when we ate real food. We loved Church Royalty Dude, because he meant hoagies and Pepsi.
She always cooked something, because she believed that if you had a guest, you cooked, and yes I totally got that trait from her, too. She'd make these amazing, complicated dessert things, or whip up a stew, or make some sort of salad or dip or something and it was always great, always from scratch, always seriously complicated, and she always did it effortlessly. Maybe she'd just stored up a years' worth of energy in her ass, I don't know. What I do know is that, though she didn't, the woman could cook.
You could just never, ever ask her to heat up a tv dinner. That thing would resemble a brick in a war zone by the time she was done with it. Ask for macaroni and cheese? You might as well call the CSI people to help you find it later. She couldn't make anything easy, ever; she just didn't think that way.
Guess who inherited something from her mother after all?
When I buy Kraft Dinner for my kids, I have to buy four boxes because I will, without a doubt, burn or boil to mush the first two boxes without fail, every time. Once, my kids' godfather's mom had 1of3's birthday at her house and asked me to bring ice cream sandwiches, just ice cream sandwiches, and I can't even being to think of the words I'd need to use to describe the monstrosity I brought to her house.
I cannot make cookies. COOKIES, PEOPLE.
I can bake anything. I can make the most complicated pastry, but not a chocolate chip cookie. I can bake the most amazing beef roulade you'll ever put in your face, but ask me to make a simple pot roast; go on, I DARE YOU. I can make homemade green chili that will make you cry out to the virgin Mary for mercy, but this one time I tried to make a homemade marinara and yeah, we're still having nightmares about that one.
I once made a fantastic meatloaf and cooked it on a styrofoam tray. I wish I was kidding.
I couldn't have inherited the green eyes or the jet black hair or the perfect fingernails or the nose that didn't look like a coat hanger, oh no...I had to get her mad kitchen skills. Thanks, really. On the upside, I'm not batshit crazy and I have had sex since 1981, so I'll live with my refrigerated cookie dough and take out chinese and call it even, I suppose.
I'd have really liked that black hair, though. I mean, look at it.
Bitch.
Reader Comments (45)
I'm gonna need to try some of that beef stuff thankyouverymuch. Oh and your hair is fine just the way it is.
Not being capable of doing simple, but excelling at extraordinary, is pretty cool, I think.
Now I'm intrigued to see what you'd look like with black hair!
My 5yo prides herself on her skillz with making Easy-Mac...except for the other day when she forgot to add the water...I thought we were going to have to stay in a hotel that night so we wouldn't die from smoke inhalation!
i've had honey blond hair my whole whole life, and since i was five i've wanted it to be dark brown/black. stupid blond hair.
my fiance had me make him some mac and cheese last night... i don't think he'll ask again, he's still reeling from how i got the pasta so smushy.
I sometimes wonder if my kids will remember me that way, as someone who could cook but often didn't. (Mainly because my cooking is so awesome - and by awesome I mean laden with salt and fat - that my wife refuses to let me cook all the time.)
I wanna see you with black hair.
and damn.. you really have a way with the story chickie.
MEATLOAF ON STYROFOAM? part of me just died.
Who actually owns a styrofoam board??
So, what burned, easy dish prompted this post?
I think she was pretty. But that's me.
If any trait is worth inheriting, it's that one.
A. You hair is lovely just as it is.
B. I burn the first grilled cheese I make., EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
My mother is from hell. I don't have a single thing in common with her that I know of, and I like it that way. This post rocked though :)
Is there a recipe that you'd be willing to share for the green chili? Green chili is pretty much an "event" over at Chez Brassy, but the recipe holder doesn't really use recipes. He's tried writing it down for me, but it's mostly a feel it out as you go, adding these sorts of things to it, sort of "recipe". I'm the kind of cook that needs a concrete recipe to start with, so I understand the dish, before I start playing around with it...
Your mad cooking skills make you even hotter. I just won't put you in charge of bringing the fruit cups.
Frozen cookies are better anyway. No they're not. I'm just saying that to be nice.
And I'm glad to know I'm not the only person left in the world who still uses the term 'TV Dinner" from time to time.
I would kill for a hoagie. I hope you inherited that particular skill.
Seriously ... you are far better off without the black hair. It turns white faster and is way more obvious. You won in the long run!!
@Avitable, You have NO idea how much I am restraining myself right now.
The kid (you), really looks like 3 of 3.
@Xbox4NappyRash, I do.
Anyone who attempts to make and probably actually eats meatloaf deserves to cook it in styrofoam. Just sayin.
Dye your hair. :)
A raven-haired Mr. Lady? Enough imagery to lose sleep over.
lol...if only it were easy to pick and choose our traits. My mom is tall with broad shoulders, big boobs and big feet...I got the big feet.
I am this way with muffins. I cannot make a muffin to save my life. My friends all pop them in first thing in the morning and eat them for breakfast. "But it's so easy and quick and cheap," they say. It takes me 2 hours and they turn out like hockey pucks. I do not know why.
And luckily my husband is the king of Kraft dinner. He can handle the boxed food prep around here.
The black hair would look terrible with your complexion which is so ridiculously peaches and cream I would normally hate you but you are too damn funny to hate. If you think I am kidding try a Cher wig sometime. I did for Halloween a few years ago and WOW am I not supposed to have hair that color. Or red. Not supposed to have red hair either. That was a different Halloween.
You're lucky you can bake something, so what if you can't make cookies :)
We always inherit the strangest traits from our parents.
I'm also wondering what you'd look like with black hair
The good news is that cookies can be purchased by people who like making cookies and are good at it. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with your nose!
enjoyable post. would it be really bad to say that u DO look a little like her ...
Oooooh, a picture of your mom. Dare I say you are tempting fate?
Having black hair sux. I always wanted to be a blonde. Don't you blonde-types have more fun?
LOL!
I wish I have my mom's mad kitchen skills. And it's too bad I had to copy almost everything from her. From the hair down to the legs. Even the occasional migraine attacks that made me wish I have Angelina Jolie for a mother.
But her cooking skills...
I can't even fry eggs without having to remove pieces of shell from the hot pan.
Crazy.
Man, I'd LOVE to have been as good of a cook as my mom was! She was the bomb in the kitchen.
But I'd say that, much like you, I'd be happy with inheriting just that and only that.
the best part about blogher was you rubbing my back while we smoked with the mouthy gay guy in the curve of the cabs outside the hotel. you were rubbing my back like a mother.
i remember in that moment thinking: this woman is such a nurturer, so filled with love, it leaks out, and crap, I wish I grew up where she did, how she did: be smart like that, pretty like that? YES. Please.
it scares and assures me to read this and know: love is limitless. boundless. it breaks all pasts to make itself known. which is does: in every. thing. you. write.
PS: bring smokes to heaven.
But, you got Teh Awesome. And you can always dye your hair, which you would have done if you really gave shit about that part. ;-)
Let the kids cook the crap food, and strut your blond ass 'round knowing you don't have to wait for Church Royalty Dude to come to town to make your family an amazing dinner.
P.S. If you need me to smuggle some chocolate chip cookies across the border to you, let me know. I inherited the baking gene.
we dark-haired folks always wanted blond hair.
and as a curly/frizzy/icky dark-haired person, i wanted long STRAIGHT hair (think marcia brady).
sigh.
Once I got past the Church royalty dude which brings back horrible memories or flash backs of my own childhood (my mom doesn't speak to me either) I laughed like crazy at this. Of all things to feel like you inherited. If it makes you feel any better I did once turn a box of kraft mac n cheese into a pan of glue which when tipped upside down, nothing came out. And I never added the cheese either.
Baking cookies from scratch is for suckas. Yeah, those other moms can do it, but can they toss out a banging blog post like this one? Doubt it.
Also, I'm not supposed to use Internet Explorer? What am I supposed to use? Is there like a secret internet I don't know about? Shit.
Pancakes. I suck at making pancakes. (Or really, anything. There. I've admitted it.) The first ones are burned or runny. But by the 17th one, they're edible.
And if you want black hair, I can give you a couple of wig shop URLs that provide awesome service. ;-)
*waves* I'll give you free cookie baking lessons! :)
Or maybe just bring you some if we have a Vancouver blogger meet up.
Cookies are tricky little bastards, dude. You can make them once, and they're beautiful. The next time, they're hard as a rock. The next time they're completely flat and cooked together. What changed? Nothing. Cookies are just tricky that way.
It's so funny what gets passed down and what doesn't make it. My mother and grandmother are total plant-whisperers - if it grows they can make it flourish. Plants tend to just wilt and die when I walk by, I seriously can't keep anything in a pot alive. which my husband found out to his chagrin after our first Mother's Day together.
Hey, at least you can cook, right?
....I suppose that's a good thing. Sometimes I feel like I put my foot in my mouth.
didn't really read this post fully, but was struck by the venom towards your mother and that you haven't been in contact since 1992. so it happens to other women, too? why? it can't be natural to hate one's mother. It seems so wrong, so terrible, so fearsome. are you afraid your children will hate you?