Americans Can Cook

Every afternoon (3:30 pm), Jordan and I stand outside of Lexi’s school to pick her up. There are four moms at that exit that walk their kids home on a daily basis, so we have casually talked every day for the past six weeks. For some strange reason, I am the only US born mom and consequently the only one without an accent. One is from France. One is from Venezuela. The third one is from Bolivia.

Last week, the one from France brought each of us a bundle of fresh basil from her garden. The next day, they were all curious about how we each used our basil. The French one’s father was a chef, so she regularly cooks with fresh basil. The one from Venezuela teaches gourmet cooking classes for parties at people’s homes. She planned to use her basil for one of the parties. The one from Bolivia was still thinking about how she would use it, but had thought about using it in a cream cheese mix for various different things. They all looked at me with curiosity. I told them I was going to make a homemade margherita pizza (posted a picture above as proof). They were surprised that I knew how to cook since I am an “American.”

Isn’t that funny that they thought that? Is it because Americans eat out a lot? Maybe they just think we stick to meat and potatoes, which I know a lot who do. I happen to be better at foreign dishes. To be honest, I love all things Italian. Indian, Arabic and Japanese rank high on my list of dishes too. We hardly ever go out to eat, so I have to keep it interesting. I don’t know how Americans got that reputation or if it is wide-spread, but perhaps it is time we show them that we can cook.