I really like cooking. Even though, sometimes I can’t be bothered or it ends up in disaster. Burning myself, setting myself on fire (yes really), scalding myself with hot water, knife cuts, burning tea towels, burning oven gloves and those are just recent highlights. Kris (the husband) helps me quite a bit with cooking – he gets out everything I need, checks on me and he always does the washing up!
A few weeks ago, I was cooking something in a pan and I smelt some plastic burning. I looked around and I couldn’t work out where it was coming from. So I assumed it was a bit of food on the hob. A few minutes later, I felt really hot, I looked down and my hoodie was on fire. I screamed for Kris, but he didn’t come quickly enough. So I took the hoodie on fire off (which required some aerobic moves) and he came to set out the fire, before anything else caught alight. It’s therefore, not really a surprise that since childhood my mum has always been wary of me cooking. She would always be watching over me and telling me things were hot (like I didn’t know).
For me cooking, like a lot of things, is a sign of me being self sufficient, granted, I need some help, but cooking makes me feel independent. It is also a stress reliever – when I have a few spare hours, it’s nice to bake or cook something new! It also gives me some sense of control (being able to make my own decisions empowers me) and it makes me happy. I remember, at university, I wasn’t really very confident with cooking, but now I feel like I am good! I have people around, and I cook good food. My sister loves just coming over for the food.
So all in all, cooking gives me happiness, (it also makes other people happy) control and independence. Who would have thought all of that comes from the simple act of boiling some pasta or frying an egg?!
Although I haven’t got any recent pictures of my food, take a trip over to my instagram, where you can see some excellent food pictures!
disabilityandme.net 