Girls can get away with being bad at so many things. Like how it’s endearingly cute when a girl loses her debit card for the twelfth time. Or how, when girls are less-than-adequate drivers, it’s written off as an adventure with associated risk rather than a concern. Not to mention, it’s actually borderline hot when a girl’s car is a mess – with Chick-Fil-A bags strewn all over the backseat. I don’t know if any of these examples are cool or uncool to bring up (in the sense of, do they fly in today’s world or do they not?). All I’m asking is that we add cooking to the list.
I can only offer around five different meals to those I care about in my life – most of which I’d consider snacks before anything else. But in a pinch I can pull out two stops: boxed macaroni and cheese and cheesecakes. Vastly different, because one literally has the word “instant” on the packaging while the other takes two-plus hours and requires a level of commitment in the kitchen that I don’t often like to exert. I also have to Google a cheesecake recipe every time I make one.
Anyways, I’m somewhat of a boxed macaroni and cheese celebrity within my friend circle. At high school parties, it wasn’t uncommon for people to offer up my services around 1AM to those who simply would not leave our house in a fashionable manner. My brother and his friends would be anxiously waiting for people to leave, so they could go outside and grill their homemade burger patties stuffed with garlic, onions, bacon, and shredded cheese. Meanwhile, they’d throw everyone else off the scent by being like, “Kels makes the best macaroni and cheese!” And look: I, too, would have rather eaten a homemade grilled burger over boxed Kraft. I’m just saying that I had a role to play within the construct of our friend group, and it was one that I played well. So well, in fact, that I once found myself in a “Macaroni and Cheese-Off” at a post-college bachelorette party, because another girl also said she was the best at making it. And despite the immense pressure, I won the popular vote and retained my title.
A few years ago I switched it up and went on a pie-making kick. Main reason being: I bought a $500 KitchenAid with all the attachments and had to make good use of it, otherwise people would file it away under, “Kelsey’s online shopping addiction purchases.” I was peeling apples and spiralizing spaghetti squash like you wouldn’t believe. Coincidentally this was during the pandemic, but I’m not going to say it was during the pandemic. I’ve lived my entire life going through phases, so this one was bound to strike regardless of what year it was. Ipso facto, I became pretty good at making pies until an injury forced my pie career to come to a halt. I burnt my wrist taking two little blueberry numbers out of the oven the night before Thanksgiving, and now I have a little white scar from it. At the time, I was also talking to a guy who made a big fucking deal about how we were going to get the pies from Point A to Point B, so sometimes the pie scar reminds me (that the past is real) of that and further deters me from wanting to ever make one again.
The only upside to the pie scar incident is that now I can hang my hat on being a girl who’d be open to tattooing someone else’s name on me. I’m not saying I would want to do that, I’m just saying that it honestly wouldn’t be any worse than the pie scar. And it could actually be a more manageable future fix depending on its location, since you could just get a cover up. Instead, I’m stuck trying to figure out what kind of tattoo I should get on my wrist as a pie scar cover up. It has to be something basic, something that won’t start too much conversation: like a butterfly or a Capricorn symbol or something. Otherwise it will just lead to the pie scar tangent, which is fundamentally the same as just keeping the pie scar visible.
So yeah. I can’t cook. But I can provide either boxed macaroni and cheese or tattooing your name on my body. Your call.
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