First Thing I Cooked

A sweet idea from Gluten Free Girl & The Chef: to conjure up that earliest memory, in the kitchen, wielding power and wooden spoon for the first time! I couldn't pinpoint the occurrence - so I went straight to the source (and emailed my mother). She said:

Definitely it was chocolate chip cookies. You made them with Dad while I was at an art class. You insisted you knew the recipe and they were really good (if a little dry) except you forgot the butter - so the next day they were like little rocks!!! I think you were in second grade? You were so proud of yourself (as you should have been) and crestfallen when they turned into rocks. The whole thing exemplified many facets of your Dunn personality. Stubborn insistence that you knew what you were doing and the strength of character to plow ahead and do it. You must have been even more sure of yourself than Dad as he (who knew nothing) went ahead with it. It didn't matter about the rocks, because you both had such a good time and as I remember it there was flour all over the kitchen when I came home, It was when the kitchen counters were still 70s orange and we had the stool for you to sit on. Does that help?

Yes, yes it does. In fact, I hardly remember that at all. The incident that sticks out in my mind was the time I made "everything" cookies, giggling to myself as I added ketchup, ranch dressing, and pepper to the dough. They came out hard, like biscotti, and - believe it or not - did not taste horrible! I remember hiding upstairs as my father came home, hungrily shoving two into his mouth, declaring them delicious. Perhaps that was the first time I realized - with a little confidence, it's hard to screw up food.