I made food for the sometime Two-Headed Baby band last weekend.  Now normally, we get barbeque when we play at Barb and Brad’s.  And now that we jam at Bob and Maureen’s every other week, Maureen cooks.

And that’s how I came to realize the Not Maureen-ness of me.

You see, Maureen approaches cooking like a conductor approaches a new score.  If you’ve been reading EOB, you know that she also writes about cooking in an elegy-like way.  (Some examples are here.  Go.  Read.  I can wait.)

Okay, so now you know just how lyrically she writes about food (and cooks for that matter).

It’s just a little daunting for the likes of me, because this is how I approach cooking: 

Brisket

1)      Get Brisket from store.  Spend ten minutes in front of open cooler debating what size brisket to get.  Get uncomfortably cold. Choose brisket you’re currently holding when you realize you’re too nippley to be out in public. Hold brisket in front of chest until you’re out of cold section.

2)      Take brisket home.  Open packaging and torment dog with bloody wrapper.  Throw wrapper into garbage.  Dog worships at the altar of the garbage can for the rest of the afternoon.

3)      Put brisket into pan.  Curse when you realize brisket is too big for current pan and requires the larger pan which currently lives in the most inconvenient spot in the house. Open closet where pan lives and Fibber McGee your way inside.  Locate pan and then spend the next two hours putting closet back together.

4)      Put brisket into new larger pan.  Pour beer over brisket until it comes half-way up the side of brisket.  Drink rest of beer. Decide the brisket needs just a touch more beer.  Add another dollop of beer from new bottle.  Drink rest of second beer.  Read More »