The Single Girl's Complaint

Tonight's dinner. Actually tasted better than it looks.

Cooking has become torturous. It hate cooking. I detest cooking. If I could live on Ghirardhelli chocolate chips and Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby with no consequences to my arteries or my thighs, I would. If I could consume sticky buns and snickerdoodles with impunity, I'd be a happy girl. Oreos. Trader Joe's Ripple Cut Sweet Potato Chips.

It wasn't always this way. About 13 years ago when I was freshly divorced, I made an effort. Good food. Veggies. Salads. Every Friday after work, I shopped for the ingredients that would become either Saturday night or Sunday dinner. Then I (cheerfully) ate the leftovers all week, bringing them for lunch like the thrifty bachlorette I was. Recipes cut from the newspaper or old Food & Wine magazines were photocopied and snapped into 3-ring binders.

It started changing when I went to work as the editor of three city magazines for a division of The Kansas City Star. One of the magazines (which was my creation) was an arts publication that required me to be out and about most nights of the week. Receptions and schmoozefests were commonplace. I started living on granola and yogurt for breakfast, whatever for lunch, and for dinner, the best canapes and little bites that Costco and various arty parties could offer. At work, I kept a jar of peanut butter in my cabinet and change for the vending machine in my drawer. I took high quality vitamins. I ran or walked daily. Did Pilates.

Not thinking about food was just so much easier than planning meals for one person.

I'm quite certain that this is not an unfamiliar or uncommon phenomenon. But it hit me like a frying pan upside the head tonight when I wandered into the kitchen, hungry, yet completely uninspired by anything in the cupboard or the frige. But not only was I indifferent to what I found, I was angry about it. What the hell am I supposed to do with this odd combination of ingredients on hand? What can I make from broccoli, apples and milk? Do I just eat peanut butter - again? I glared at the graying celery as though it was at fault for not planning a menu.

My friends would be surprised to read this. I bring goodies to gatherings and make homemade cookies for bake sales. In fact, many people I know talk to me about food and I participate in those conversations with enthusiasm.Eating is a pleasure and I have a fundamental understanding of how food goes together, but my real talent is baking. Friends would protest, oh, you're such a good cook! I am no such thing. I know how to follow a recipe, much like I know how to read music. Learning to play piano and learning to bake were similar in that each depends upon combining separate components into a whole according to proscribed rules. Key signature, time signature, whole notes, half notes. Mixing bowl, cookie sheet, cup, half cup.

Cooking is like improvising. Certain flavors compliment each other; particular scales and phrasings create an original solo. When my former husband would corner me into playing the Hammond organ with him while he played guitar, he would look at me and say, "take it!" meaning that I should solo. I would freeze on whatever chord I had been playing. At times I actually ended up in tears, not know what to do with the notes in front of me without a sheet of paper to organize them.

I feel a similar frustration lately in the kitchen. Fresh food is a commitment for a single person. How does one cook for one? The conundrum is complicated by the fact that I find frozen LeanCuisine or Healthy Choice-type meals repulsive. (Yes, I've tried them.)  (Yes, I've tried them recently.) And it's not that I don't like healthy food - I do. When I have the money, I will eat at Luscious Lorraine's or Native Foods every day, or employ a chef to create dishes for me. I will empty my cupboards of ingredients and spices, let someone else drive.

Dinner tonight was a lo-carb tortilla with a piece of Colby-jack cheese and a slice of turkey Canadian bacon topped with a scrambled egg. Not bad, but not particularly exciting, either. Good thing the chocolate chips are in the cupboard and the vitamins are in the medicine cabinet.

None of these fifty chocolate chips were harmed in the making of this message. However, many were taken into digestive custody soon after.