I'm back. I'm sorry. Don't hate me. I promise by the end of this post I will tell you what my hobby is. I didn't think my last post would cause so many questions, but every where I turned people asked... "Becca, whats your hobby?" I've received phone calls, text messages, emails, gchats, voicemails, visits for the sole purpose of figuring out what my hobby was. It has gotten so bad that I have to go out my back door to avoid the paparazzi, journalists, national television news crew. The fact that I don't have a back door made this really difficult. But when theres a will, theres a way--or at least that is what they say? I was really flattered by all the questions, but I started to feel like Brittany Spears in her hit song "Lucky."... AHEM. Ok so maybe i'm over exaggerating a tiny bit. Or a lot more than a tiny bit. Maybe I only had a few questions. Nonetheless, thanks for being interested. It made me feel good.
When Landon and I got married I wanted to be the perfect wife. You know the kind. Perfectly cleaned house--all the time. Perfectly behaved children--all the time. Perfectly shaped smile--all the time. Its almost like I had this vision in my head of what a perfect wife looked like. Well of course the vision lasted about 1 day because life got too busy for perfect. I did, however, start doing the wifee things. Cooking, cleaning, decorating, cleaning, fixing, cleaning, sewing... well not really sewing, but you get the point. I just wanted to make sure I was doing my fair share of things and making Landon happy in the meantime. I loved the first couple of months of our marriage. I was terrible at everything. I had never cooked in my life. I had never had my own home to clean everyday. I had never been married. I had never sewn. I still have never sewn. My husband said that for the first four months of our marriage everything tasted like cream of chicken soup. In my defense, I was working on building a food storage and you could get a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken for 49 cents. So of course I bought... ahem... 50 cans. ANYWAY. I was just learning lots of new things and loving every second of it and mostly grateful that I had an incredibly patient husband. Am I the only one that felt like this?
On the topic of cooking. I just have to share this quick story. For our 2 day honeymoon we went to this really unique spot. Park City. To save money we stayed in a hotel with a kitchen. The first morning I woke up early, went to the store, bought eggs, bacon, bread, syrup, milk, and some lovely Steven's Hot Chocolate. I got back to the hotel and quietly started making breakfast. It was this very morning where I learned I could be as loud as I wanted for I had just married a deep sleeper. Anyway, I started assembling breakfast. Eggs in bowl, bacon on pan, french toast ready to go. Last but not least the Hot Chocolate. I saw a kettle in front of me so--never using a kettle before--I did what any normal person would do. I put the right amount of water in the kettle, poured the hot choco powder it and let it heat up. Lets just say in a little while the kettle exploded. Hot Chocolate went E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E. I learned two more things that morning. Kettles=Water only & Husband won't wake up if house falls down.
Sorry, I am getting side tracked. Onto my hobby. Landon and I went on a date every saturday night. It really didn't matter what we did as long as we had some good food. We loved going out and having something tastey. But, as many couples find out in the first couple of months... going out to eat=lots of money. We started realizing we had to limit our restaurant outings. We made a goal to only eat out once a month. This was really depressing for a while. Not only did it squash our best date nights, it also made it so we hade an everlasting taste of cream of chicken in our mouth. Early in January, I decided I was sick of feeding my husband gross food that he said he loved but I knew he didn't. I had seen the way he reacted when something tasted great. He had never reacted like that with my food. So this started my adventure. We couldn't afford to go out to eat, but that wasn't going to stop us from eating good food. I knew it would be work, I knew it would take time, I knew I would fail--a lot, but I knew I had to do it! (Like the drama addition to my lovely story?)
In January, I decided I would make a new meal every time I cooked. This required a lot research. I have to admit, it was hard at first. I would look at recipes and think, "What the heck is Worchershire sauce?" or "Why would you put a leaf anywhere but on a tree?" But I started to build up my pantry with a variety of things, I started planning out meals weeks in advance, I started going shopping every week, I started cooking and cooking and cooking and cooking. Four weeks ago as I was making a new Chicken Cordon Blu dish, I screamed! "LANDON!!!" As he came running from the office I said, "I finally have a hobby. I. LOVE. TO. COOK!" And that was that. I have truly and honestly, one hundred percently learned to love to cook. To be honest it is what I think about most of my day. I am just excited to go from work so I can make my new planned out recipe. It doesn't matter how busy I am, there is always time to cook. And every once in a while, when I put a plate in front of my perfectly hungry husband and he takes a bite and does his "I love this dish" reaction... I am the happiest person in the world.
If I were to start my college carrer over again, I would go to culinary school. I told Landon that if we still don't have children when we head to Med School I am enrolling in the famous Le Cordon Blu Culinary Arts Program. Don't worry Mama & Papa Woolf, there is one in Arizona... right next to the Medical School.
I hope that one day, people will say, "Oh MY! have you ever eaten Rebecca Woolf's food? It's amazing!" That day is about 50 years away. But don't worry, I only have one hobby. I can spend all my hobby time in the Kitchen and that is just fine. with. me.
