Let Me Sleep All Night In Your Soul Kitchen

If there’s one thing I wish I were, it’s a better cook.  I like the idea of cooking and I like all the gadgets.  But, I just don’t do a lot of it.  Partly, that’s because as a single girl who lives alone, it hasn’t always felt worth it to cook big meals from scratch with premade spaghetti sauce and some noodles will do.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t cook for friends, or now especially, for My Guy.

Last night, I took a cooking class with the Domestic Goddess.  Cook extraordinaire (the woman makes her own baklava instead of just buying it), I was a little intimidated.  She assured me not to worry, as she has never been a self-proclaimed Domestic Goddess, only a Cheryl-proclaimed one.

I’ve taken classes at this establishment before.  I’ve always enjoyed them.  And while I enjoyed this class, and some of the recipes, and hanging out with the Domestic Goddess, well I have never received so much slack for my eating preferences before.  And it? Was kind of annoying.  So annoying that at one point I turned to Domestic Goddess and whined a bit.

It started out with a girl who, well to be frank, was a little annoying.  DG insists she was drinking before class (wherein we were all free to order wine).  I insisted she was just, kind of odd.  Like she didn’t want to cook or try anything.  Why one goes to a cooking class if one doesn’t want to cook is a bit of a mystery. She only wanted to do one thing, carve a chicken.  But more on that later.

It was a chicken-themed class, and one of the sides to one of the dishes was a prosciutto salad.  Let me lay it on the line for you all: I don’t eat beef or pork because I don’t like them.  I just don’t like pork and I don’t like red meat as I stated a few posts ago: bloody=yuck to me.

And so I skipped the salad.  The instructor asked why and I explained I don’t eat pork.  Now, most people take it in stride when I tell them that.  Especially because it’s just a personal preference.  I’m not avoiding beef and pork because of animal rights–I still eat poultry and fish, after all.  I don’t even care if people grill them together or use the same utensils on them.  I’m never one to inconvenience others by my preferences, meat or otherwise.  So usually it just comes up as more of an interesting fact about Cheryl and we all move on.

Last night, annoying girl heard me say I don’t eat pork and asked “Are you Muslim?”  I admit, I was taken aback by the statement.  No one has EVER asked that.  I have rarely been asked if I’m Jewish.  And honestly, that makes more sense to me.  I guess I think I probably look more ethnically Jewish than ethnically Muslim.  But whatevs.  That’s neither here nor there.  I just wonder why, not eating pork brings someone to an assumption that it has anything to do with religion.  Ok, I can see why because it was clear that I do eat chicken, thus I wasn’t vegetarian but still.

And if it were related to religious beliefs, why a total stranger in a cooking class I’ve spoken about 10 words to in the hour and a half I’ve been sitting next to her feels the need to ask me anything about religion at all is beyond me.  I also didn’t know how to read her.  Would it have been a problem with her if I were Muslim?  In hindsight I almost want to go back say “yes I am,” and throw out the takbir just to see her reaction.  But I digress.

Later as the annoying girl carved the chicken she asked if anyone had preference to white or dark meat.  Now look, EVERYONE I know has a preference for poultry.  White or dark meat, some prefer a wing over a leg.  This is not new, in fact it’s why she asked.  I said I prefer white and after all the fuss (theirs not mine) over pork, was asked by the instructor if I’m a chicken racist. It was a joke, I know (not a good one, really).  But oy! Never have I felt so scrutinized over my eating preferences.  All I’m saying is, it’s a good thing we weren’t having beets.