What's that smell?

My Dad and my Brother recently became employed at Coastal Equipment Rentals in Newport. Lee, who owns the store, used to work with my dad at Country Aire Rental until they both quit within days of each other (the owners weren't the nicest people). Someone quit at Lee's store a week or so ago and he needed a quick and efficient replacement. He called my dad and my dad, who has been talking about getting a job for a while now, was more than happy to accept after a long conversation with Lee. The one condition was that Rob, my younger brother, went along with dad, because leaving him alone at home is not something either of my parents are very comfortable with. So Rob gets paid for a twenty-hour week and my dad works a 40-50 week at the store as Manager, I think. Dad wanted to start at the bottom, but Lee wanted to put him on top right of the bat. So, Rob goes to work every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and dad works Monday through Thursday, and then on Saturday. With both parents working again, and me at home, I get to maintain the homefront while they are gone, which aside from involving cleaning and mowing and other household maintenance, also involves cooking.

I've actually started to like cooking. I can cook - make no mistake about that - but I've always shied away from cooking meat - I don't have any practical experience in this area. But then for something to be a meal, nine times out of ten it has to have some sort of meat. A few years ago, when my mom was in California with her father, and my dad and my Uncle James were working all day to build our new roof, I was in charge of cooking dinner. During that time, I learned that I liked a lot of seasoning on my meat - I would coat pieces of chicken or pork chops or beef with every spice that I could get my hands on (and that passed my smell test). I put garlic powder, chili powder, salt n' spice, onion powder, cayenne pepper, pepper flakes, and who knows what else on every inch of the meat. And it surprisingly came out well. But since then, I haven't cooked any meat aside from ground beef in a skillet. But on Monday I jumped right in and searched our freezer to determine what my options were. There were some spare ribs (no thank you), some venison (I'll let dad cook that), some chicken , and some ground beef. So, dinner would either be chicken or ground beef. Now I needed some inspiration. With the key words of tasty and low fat (as my mom asked) I scoured through the recipe books (we have two shelves just full of cook books - tons of options). I settled for Parmesan Chicken. It was surprisingly easy - a little of this, a bit of that, pop it in the oven and let time take over. I didn't tell anyone what it was - save for it being baked chicken. When they saw me take out the leftover spaghetti sauce and then start boiling some noodles, they were a bit apprehensive. It was fun to see comprehension dawn on their faces when I explained that it was Parmesan chicken. So the chicken on a bed of pasta and spaghetti sauce, with a salad on the side was my first meal. It was very good, and that's not just me talking - everyone liked it.

So today I became a tad bit more ambitious. I made a loaf a French bread (starting with flour and water), and I just took it out of the oven. I then made a meat loaf type dish - with the ground beef mixed with some thyme and rosemary and garlic, and then a filling of broccoli, carrots, and sweet peppers all rolled up inside like a cinnamon roll. It's baking right now, but it sure smelled good while I was making it. And then for dessert, I made a coconut creme pie (hold the meringue), which is currently cooling in the back of the refrigerator. I hope everything turns out well. I can't believe I've rambled on about cooking for this long, but there you have it. Bon apetit!