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Cooking
In
eighth grade I had no idea what to expect of high school. Needless to say I was
nervous, but also had certain expectations. After watching certain shows and
hearing stories I was able to in a sense unwrap the outer leaf of high school.
It took four years for me to fracture the inner leaflet and clear the innard
but over these past years I have furled all of my collective experiences into
one
Throughout high
school I discovered my passion to cook, making my kitchen a home of itself. I slowly
began to realize how much of high school is represented in this area. Each
little utensil plays a fairly mundane role as an individual, but collectively
they create the entire experience.
Tinfoil,
soda cans, and water bottles aptly describe my freshman year. The classic go to
food was some chicken nuggets, French fries, and a soda or water. It was partly
due to the convenience of it all, but also to a lack of resources, or proper
connections if you will. See, freshman year I didn’t even go to AB. I spent
that year boarding at this school in NH, Proctor Academy. It was an awesome
experience, but sophomore year I decided to live at home and come to AB.
Anyways, in my dorm was a common room with only a microwave and a toaster oven.
This lack of utilities unfortunately inhibited my culinary skills severely, but
I learned to make do.
The
days generally started with a quick bowl. My favorite cereal was always Coco
Crisp or blue dream. That along with a toasted bagel and I was set. For lunch I
would eat in the dining hall because this was the best meal of the day. My
fingers often sore from the daily grind, lips dry, I looked forward to dinner
which was about to roll around. I would pop open the freezer, see what we had,
and more or less dump out the contents. We usually had some high grade frozen
foods such as Tostinos Pizza Rolls, dinosaur chicken nuggets, not delivery but
DiGiorno Pizza, and oh so much more. These foods never failed to leave on
satisfied, and although I would have considered myself a master in the art of
baking a hot pocket I was totally ignorant to the fact that I had just stepped
foot into a very immense world.
Sophomore
year I really began to taste what
it was this world consisted of. I recall meeting four kids who loved to cook in
my first two days when I expected to meet zero. I was lucky to find people who
share the same passion as me. Cooking after school at my house one day,
preparing this special pasta salad dish. The glass bowl was just sitting on the
counter, completely empty, and some mysterious force came and knocked it off.
Glass everywhere, awesome. Out comes the broom and I make short work of the
mess. RIP Wesley. The item was replaced within days, and over the next few weeks
I learned how to make the best pasta salad on this side of the Merrimack.
With
access to a full kitchen sophomore year, I was really able to learn a lot of
new recipes and explore my passion. One warm April morning my Aunt Mary came to
visit and said she had a surprise for me. She didn’t even need to say it,
because I knew immediately. Lately I had been asking to learn her secret fudge
and cookie dough brownie recipe. She finally decided to visit from California,
and I knew I was about to discover a whole different type of cooking.
A restless wait
ensues while the brownies bake to a melty perfection. We pull them out of the
oven and she tells me to let them cool for precisely four minutes. After this
cruel wait I cut two generous brownies, fill up a glass of zero percent milk,
and prepare for ecstasy. “To this day I wow people with the recipe, often
blasting them away into different dimensions of enjoyment for times up to
twelve hours.”
(Mary Jansen)
Come
junior year I felt as if I was floating with the clouds of my new baking world.
As a junior I took chemistry and this was the first time that I was introduced
to the beaker bottom. I really don’t know why but I was fascinated from the
beginning, I had to explore further. I became aware that when heat is applied,
the bubble of a beaker is very consistent. From what I had learned via previous
experiences, this perpetuated optimal milking conditions. When I finally seized
the opportunity to use one outside of the classroom I was blown away. The glass
cooled the milk in such a peculiar fashion, and yet it was perfect. I felt as
if I had reached Steven Hawking intelligence level after finishing the milk.
Needless to say I wasn’t going to use any more ordinary straight cups when it
came to quaffing the milk. This was a forest clearing year, and I’m not sure we
left one tree in our wake.
Then
senior year rolled along. At first it felt as if I was in a Call of Duty game
and had been dazed by a bio/blastioise blast, or as if a smoke grenade had fish
bowled the room I’m in. I was just shocked, the past three years have cruised
by, I just need to finish up this year and I’m out. In January I unfortunately
cruised into a minor speed bump. My friend literally plugged a toaster into his
car and was driving around with it. Unfortunately his headlight had gone out
the day before and on went the blue lights. After dealing with an unreasonable
police officer we learned driving while cooking was illegal and each had to pay
a small fine. Fortunately the incident passed smoothly and life continued.
Overall
cooking has defined my high school experience in a diverse multitude of ways. I
have in a sense baked my way through these last four years and reached such
states of enlightenment through doing so. The time has blazed by but yet when
trying to recall certain aspects of freshman year my memory becomes hazy. These
past years have been a journey. I am finally beginning to feel ready to proceed
with the next four years, and know that baking is going to help guide me
through them.EndFragment
