A George Foreman, a little hamburger and sweet tea!

"Now you're cooking!!!"

This evening I conquered something new! Sure, it will probably seem asinine and unimportant to you! But I have to admit once I had it mastered I couldn't help but feel a little more like a bonafide SAHM!

This little story begins last week when I went to my Mom's for dinner and MAN was it good! She whipped up a grilled chicken salad and breadsticks faster than you could say "I'm hungry." I walked into her kitchen and as usual watched in awe as she tackled making a meal in a matter of 30 minutes flat. But this time was different from the hundreds of times I'd seen her do this same feat. I thought to myself, "I've got to learn this stuff now, for real. I'm going to be a Mom. And I want to be a good one, like my Mom." I did something I have pretty much never done before. I said "Mom, show me how you get things together so quickly. It takes me forever to pull together a meal, like a legit meal that has multiple sides."

This seemed like a good meal to start with for my first lesson. I mean salad and grilled chicken with bread sticks, it can't be too bad. I expected baking, chopping of course and other daunting meal prep tactics.

Don't get me wrong, I've been cooking for the past three years of my marriage and I cooked when I lived on my own in my apartment before that. But I've never really mastered my Mom's ability to have everything ready all at the same time, without anything getting cold. It's always amazed me. It's like she's a kitchen ringleader and the meal components are her various attractions. She gets the meat to jump through the hoop and it's done just as the mashed potatoes and green beans are taking their last steps across the tight rope. End result; one excellent show!

So, when I asked my mom to show me, I was a little nervous! She was going to reveal to me one of her mysterious motherly secrets. I stood waiting, anticipating what she'd say, what mysterious strategy she might show me to produce a meal in the manner of perfection I'd grown up knowing!

"Sure D (her pet nickname for me) I mostly just use this thing that Grandma Presley gave me a while back. It's a neat little grill. Let me show you how I do this."

My jaw dropped. I mean literally, it dropped. I felt like someone was going to pop into the room at any moment and say "DUH!!!!" How could I have missed this? She'd been using a small George Foreman! For years! It almost felt like cheating!

I didnt say much as she demonstrated cooking the chicken one piece at a time, slicing it mid way through being cooked and then putting it back onto the George Foreman to make the slices of chicken a little more seared. She lightly seasoned with a Mediterranean  seasoning and dictated to me quickly to "chop three tomatoes, peel this cucumber and then dice,  and chop this green onion into small pieces."

She took three plates out while the chicken was cooking and spread a leafy green salad mix onto each one. Then she had me distribute the chopped vegetables and shredded cheese evenly between the three plates, and as I finished sprinkling the cheese, she slid the last slice of chicken onto a plate. Quickly she distributed the chicken between the three salads, and then told me to grab the dressing as she carried two of the plates to the table. I carried the last plate, set it down and then poured drinks.

Helping her cook that meal stunned me. I'd cooked many times in the past by myself and failed to get the sides done anywhere NEAR in sync with the meat. By the time I'd finish the sides, my meat was cold and had to be reheated, or worse overcooked and disappointing. It wasnt long before I shied away from doing the traditional meat and two sides setup and got into combination/conglomerate meals where you prepared ingredients and mixed. Spaghetti, lasagna, tacos etc. I never thought to really ask my Mom just how she got everything ready at the same time. It seemed so simple and I was baffled with myself for always getting the timing wrong.

Now it turned out, she'd had a secret weapon I'd never known about. She'd use her George Foreman to cook the meat once she had the sides started and could open the lid of the grill to slow down the cooking of her meat to match the prep time of her sides, or vice versa, close the lid and press to speed up the cooking temp. It just seemed so simple that I felt like a fool. Once I got over this reaction I thought, I have GOT to get one of these things. And then came the real kicker.

I told my husband this same story (in a much abridged version) and waited for his stunned reaction.

But.... I didn't get one.

"Babe. We have a George Foreman. It's been in the pantry since before we got married. I've told you a couple times you should try it. My grandmother gave me it to me when I got my own apartment. It's brand new in the box. We've never even opened it before."

Double take! "What???" Clearly, I had no memory of him ever telling me that we had this miraculous mystery machine in the pantry right? I mean, well... not that I'll ever admit at least! :)

Now we've arrived full circle. Tonight after running errands this afternoon, hitting the grocery store for what felt like the millionth time and finishing up my Christmas shopping, I was exhausted. Justin had put in a special request for homemade hamburgers since the great Pope household George Foreman discovery! I'd moved hamburger over from the freezer the night before to defrost and once the groceries were all put into their respective places I stood facing the stainless steel contraption on my counter.

"Ok." I told myself, "Time to show this thing who is boss." Talking to a grill, awesome right?

But I was intimidated by the task of getting a meal together in the same manner of awesomeness as my Mom. After all, she'd always thrown down the gauntlet. And now that I had this secret weapon she'd always used, I knew it was sink or swim.

See, if I couldn't make a meal that measured up to her perfect timing with her secret weapon, how was I going to make it as a Mom, and a Stay At Home Mom at that??? This was a huge hurtle in my mind to becoming confident in my new role.

I plugged it up. My fingers itched to dial my Mom and put her on speaker phone. What would it hurt to have her coach me through this whole process. I knew how to cook, I just needed a timing coach! No one would ever know but me and her. But I resisted. This felt important to me. Conquering this gleaming machinery and delivering all the components at the same time felt like a huge test of whether or not I could make it in this new role of my life. I was determined not to fail.

So I pattied up a pound of hamburger into four hamburgers (making my husbands slighter larger than the two I knew I would eventually be eating between today and tomorrow) and I threw a little soy sauce, garlic salt and oregano onto the patties. I could smell the heated metal, the smell filled up my nose and I knew it had to be at max heat. I opened the lid and threw the four burgers onto the grill, shut the lid quickly and made sure the drip pan was in place.

I must have opened that lid forty times to nervously glance at my hamburgers! But I set to work, sliced tomatoes, pulled out the pickles and got the buns out. I had preheated the oven to 400 before plugging up the GF, so I pulled out the bag of frozen seasoned fries and spread them on a small pan.

Suddenly, I had a whim! I stuck a pot on the stove filled with water and checked my burgers again (for the 41st time). I popped the season fries into the oven and set the timer. The water had reached boiling by this point so I dropped two teabags into the pot and pulled it aside to let it steep. I checked the hamburgers again (for the 42nd time) and popped the hamburger buns into the toaster after seeing they were just about ready. I pulled down a glass pitcher and measured out the sugar into it. The timer went off for the fries and I set them to cool on the counter, poured the pot of tea minus the tea bags into the pitcher and stirred in cool water.

The buns POPPED up from the toaster and I pulled the burgers off the George Foreman and onto a plate.

I shut off the oven, unplugged the GF and turned off the burner. It was mesmerizing. Everything was done, everything was hot! I looked around to exclaim what a good job my Mom had done and found no one in the kitchen, or the whole house for that matter but me.

What?

I'd done it. Not the normal chaotic scramble to get things ready that I usually went through only to be disappointed by cold sides or overcooked meats. Not the conglomerate food menu item I stuck to so loyally.

I'd made a meat and one side, AND sweet tea all at the same time. Granted I told myself, hamburgers and frozen fries are not that big of a deal. But still. Everything was ready and hot. And I'd made tea at the same time.

Slowly, a small smile played across my cheeks as I put my hamburger together and then put the fries onto the plate. I put the leftovers away for later and I sat down and took a bite. A big fat tear trickled down my cheek. How absolutely embarrassing, right? I'm crying because I accomplished a hamburger and frozen fries? Lame!

But I knew it wasn't really about that at all. My life had changed. I'd done what I'd seen my Mom do. I hadn't just made a meal. I'd prepared a feeling, I'd grilled an emotion and baked a mood. I'd made my house feel like a HOME!

You'd think I would have encountered this before in my three years of being a wife. But there was a difference to this experience. I was warming the birds nest. I was bringing in worms to dangle for my young. Preparing this meal both pregnant and with the mindset of a woman whose sole domain was her home and kitchen was something different all together from what I'd ever done before.


Next time, I mused to myself, Next time I'll do it with an apron!!