My grandmother would put food in the oven before turning it on. When the timer would go off, she’d be frustrated that the food was dehydrated and undercooked, so she’d try her best to salvage it by starting the timer again for the same amount of time. Then she’d ask “what smells funny?” before pulling the food out from the oven, and complaining that the recipe was bad.

She never cooked before she got married, but she was married for somewhere around 70 years.

70 years.

In 70 years, she was never able to understand the concept of preheating the oven. When I was a child, she’d come over to my parents’ house. If my mom was preparing dinner, and the oven was preheating, my grandmother would turn off the oven and tell my mother that she shouldn’t leave the oven on. My mom tried so many times to explain preheating the oven, but my grandmother insisted that it was a waste of energy.

Turns out I don’t actually dislike vegetables, I just dislike how my mother’s and grandmother make them. Did you know they can be served with colour still on them?

Church potluck every Sunday when I was a kid. A whole buffet line of jello based not dessert dishes. Usually peas in green jello, shredded carrots in orange jello,or hotdog in jello abominations. If not jello, there were at least 10 mayonnaise based atrocities.

I ate a lot of dinner rolls.