Taste of Home

I can't cook. And, honestly, never had a true desire to learn. The closest I ever really get to cooking is boiling water to make my tortellini. I get a little fancy when I add the Parmesan cheese and Mrs. Fields Italian Seasoning, but for the most part, it's kid's stuff.

Being as picky as I am, I never appreciated the art and hard work that went behind the elaborate Thanksgiving meals my grandmother would "throw" together. She has this uncanny ability to make everything finish at exactly the same time and it's timed so precisely that all the food is ready the moment the last person shows up to eat. Her mad skills got passed down to my mother and my aunts but sadly, I think it skipped a generation after that. With the exception of a few dishes, my sisters and me couldn't even pretend to pull that kind of meal together.

Like Origami, "Learn to Cook" is one of the ongoing points on my Bucket List. (FYI - I plan to post the Bucket List here when I feel like it's "ready.") My other grandmother has told me numerous times that "if you can read a recipe, than you can cook." Sadly, the family dishes are more or less in the heads of the people that have been making them forever and are only written down when asked. I'm also in no place to commit the finances or the time into mastering these recipes when I don't even eat most of the food anyways.

Fortunately, baking is something that I'm good at and I enjoy the end product. Over the past year, I've attempted and succeeded in making my mom's pound cake (which starts with three sticks of butter and three WHOLE cups of sugar), homemade pumpkin and pecan pies, and cookies from scratch instead of the ones you buy in the box. My favorite thing to make, however, is the chocolate chip cookies from the Mennonite Farmers Market in Harrisonburg.

 Luckily, I still have connections in Harrisonburg and my BFF Jess was gracious enough to swing by the market and bring me a couple of bags of cookie mix when she visited this past weekend. Since it's not healthy to eat two dozen cookies on your own, I was itching for an occasion to make them. Yay for working in such a huge office with so many people because it literally took one day at work to find a cookie-worthy event.

Thank God I still have friends back in Harrisonburg and have a reason to visit because my life would be incomplete without these cookies. They always turn out great, taste great and look awesome. I've been telling the peeps at work that I was going to make cookies soon and since one of our co-workers starts the first day of his new promotion tomorrow, the timing could not have been better.

I'm not gonna lie when I say that I mostly make cookies to eat the dough. Screw the dangers of eating raw eggs and everything else they say will come out of eating raw baked goods. Our parents did it forever and they turned out fine. I tried one of each and literally congratulated myself...out loud...in my empty apartment. I'm oober excited to take them to work tomorrow.

It's technically baking, not cooking, and the only improvising I did was add extra chocolate chips and sprinkles to their respective cookie flavors. I'm satisfied with the end product and even more satisfied with how awesome they taste despite the fact that they were mostly the work of the awesome women at Grandma's Pantry (that's the name of the food shop in the farmer's market). Baking is one place to start on the road to "Learning to Cook", but I'm not quite ready to tackle some of the family favorites: specifically corn pudding and purple punch. Until then, I have my little Taste of Harrisonburg to get me through until Homecoming weekend.

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And here's my little shout-out: If you're ever in the Harrisonburg area, or are there and have never been, I highly recommend this Farmer's Market. You can get all kinds of mixes, cheeses, jams, syrups and it all tastes exactly how "grandma's cookin'" is supposed to taste.

Here's the website for it if you're interested: http://shenandoahmarket.net/