...She must first look the part of a cook. 

A damn fine cook cannot be thin - save the "lithe and willowy" look for ballerinas and runway models. Bouncing, waving, billowing tresses make for wonderful shampoo commercials, but a damn fine cook keeps all her hairs under tight control. Far be it for my patrons to ever discover anything from my person floating in the soup, or to see my long, flowing tresses dip gracefully through the guacamole as I reach over to serve. No, although it has taken years, I have finally reached the epitome of looking the part of a damn fine cook - hair tightly restrained inside a fashionable, yet conservative hair net, a twinkle in my eye, rolls beneath my chin, a gentle, fullness beneath my apron, and abundant padding in the rear. Perfect!

...Next, a damn fine cook is well equipped. 

Not, as you may think, with gleaming electric appliances like a pastarini deluxe pasta machine ($1,500 by Ronco!) or a Bellada Lady Espresso machine with electronic thermocoil (only $625.00 when you buy two or more!). Not a food processor, nor even a drink mixer can qualify. Keep your spatula, save your spoons - a damn fine cook has bowls.

Huge, stainless steel bowls (suitable for mixing potting soil and bathing small cats)

Large Pyrex bowls that give out a pleasant round tone when struck with a wire beater or fly swatter

Small serving bowls of the finest Corelle (for impromptu tasting orgies and scooping goldfish), and finally (and most importantly!)

The tiniest of glass bows for introducing seasoning into a dish.

What? Don’t tell me you just dump the salt into the batter! No, that is provincial, at best, and a sure sign of an amateur cook. The best of the damn fine cooks (Graham Kerr and Julia Child) slowly 'introduce' the spice to the remainder of the dry ingredients (Ms. Salt I would like to meet Mr. Flour) prior to folding said dry ingredients into the egg batter. To do otherwise is to blaspheme! (besides, I seem to have mislaid my measuring spoons . . . )

Armed now with my rolls and my bowls, I can tell you the final, yet most important quality of a damn fine cook. 

...A damn fine cook never measures, she guestimates!

She looks at the recipe, notes that it calls for 2 cups of flour, 2/3 cup of sugar, one cup of milk, and a 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Because she is cooking for a growing family, for crying out loud, she will effortlessly double the recipe while also increasing the sugar by a third. Though it may appear to be magic, the trick of maintaining proportions while eschewing traditional marked cups and spoons on a ring is accomplished by using otherwise innocent kitchen apparatus as measuring devices.

Her husband’s coffee mug becomes a measure of dry goods (flour, sugar, cornmeal), the silver baby spoon can be called a 'teaspoon' for nearly every ingredient related to vanilla, and filling the palm of the hand is the perfect measure for salt and all its relatives.

And finally - a damn fine cook is liberal with the vegetable shortening and flour and avoids any spice that costs more per ounce than her favorite perfume (hint: I buy my cologne at Safeway).

At our house a damn fine cook can whip up a batch of buttermilk biscuits from scratch, while breading cheap cuts of chicken and frying zucchini slices dipped in egg batter - all while exhorting the kids to stay out of the kitchen, dinner is almost ready, and honey hand me that lemon, we seem to be out of salt . . .again. Say hon, have you noticed that the cat looks sort of, I don't know...sugary?

****

Maybe soon I’ll get up the nerve to tell you about what you need to be 'good in bed' . . . , then again, maybe not (my mom reads these!).

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If life deals you lemons, make lemonade; if it deals you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys.  But, if it deals you a truckload of hand grenades . . . now that's a message!

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