Cooking is an Act of Love

My teenage son got up just after noon today and announced he was hungry. “How about some eggs?” I asked, sure he’d jump at the chance to have me make him his favorite meal.

“Do we have any bacon from Whole Foods, the kind that’s cooked there?” he asked.

When I told him we didn’t, he wrinkled his nose, the way his mother does when she gets news she doesn’t like.

“What else do we have?” he wanted to know.

Nothing else that you’ll eat, you picky little thing, I thought to myself. It’s at times like these that I think of my mother, who raised six kids and never, not once, took a special order. “I have too much work to do to do any short order cooking,” she’d say. “If you don’t like what we’re all eating, you can help yourself to that.” At which point she’d point to a plastic bucket of peanut butter, which we’d consume in a week.

Maybe it’s because my picky eater has been picky since the day he was born, or maybe it’s because I like to cook, or maybe it’s because I really, really love my family, but unlike my mother, I’m willing to be a short order cook.

So I told my son that we didn’t have bacon but we did have a burger, and that I could cook it for him if he’d like. But I warned that we didn’t have the kind of hamburger buns that he likes.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I’m easy.”

So I cooked him a burger. I made him sit in the kitchen with me while I did, and we talked about the new school year and how he needed new clothes because he was growing so fast, and about music and books. It was the best 15 minutes of my day, and I will gladly cook for him tomorrow.