"Englisch" People Cook Too

I grew up conservative Mennonite and one thing about all "plain" folk is we know how to cook or pity the husband whose wife doesn't. I have been baking and cooking since I was 6. I couldn't use our stove that young because we had an old old old fashioned gas range that you had to light with a match but I was making pies and mixing cookie dough at that point.

At 9 I was doing the full 9 yards and learning how to prep vegetables for canning. At 12 I was canning and could cook a full Thanksgiving meal on my own. In other words, I know how to cook.

I love it. It could have been drudgery for me but honestly, the only indoor "women's work" I enjoyed was cooking and baking. As the oldest with a 7 year gap before the first son this worked well for my father. I could go from working in the wood shop or yard to cooking for mom.

Fast forward to now. I can cook so many more things than "plain cooking". It comes naturally to me but is made so much easier by the fact that I have a good foundation - years of cooking.

I went to a school reunion last year and had a great time. Some were surprised due to different reasons, the main one being it was a Mennonite school and we left a long time ago. Honestly, I was a bit nervous. It was a mixed experience. I can still hear some of the ugly things that were said to me there as a student since I wasn't a popular girl. However, I went because I had a core group of girl friends who didn't care if I was just like them or not. It was one of the few places that I felt accepted for who I was - in my life. When my family left the Mennonite church they didn't just drop me. We stayed in as much contact as we could for a while. Age and time tend to make you drift apart - we left when I was finished with 6th grade.

While at the reunion, there were also people who didn't like me then, don't like me now. That much was obvious. No, not that they didn't like me but the "outsider" attitude was still blatantly there.

It was also painfully obvious that they talked to me because curiosity allowed nothing else. I was slightly grilled on where my family is, what they are doing, what I am doing, what my husband does. No big deal. I am "proud" of our family.

Then came the slightly rude question and point of my post. "Do you cook for your family?" Try answering that with a straight face. I was imagining what life would be like if I didn't cook for my family. It was all I could do not to laugh. "Why no. Why should I do that? I simply order out for 5 people every night."

I am that curiosity called "Englisch" and that's ok with me. To answer the question, "Yes, I do cook for my family. I just might even make more things from scratch then you do." (Of course I didn't say that.)

Maybe you wonder at the point of this post. I assure you I have no earth shattering reason to post it. Sometimes things just go round and round in my brain and it helps to get it out there. A lesson? Hmmmm.... I guess it's whatever you get from it. For me, it just reminds me of how fickle stereotypes are and why I try to be careful in what I view the world around me as.