Kitchen Anger

Many women have a tumultuous relationship with food. It starts the moment you’re made aware of your weight, when it stops being a sign of how fast you’re growing up and starts to be a warning of how fast you’re growing out. While I didn’t become a vegetarian to be healthy, it was a positive side-effect so long as I didn't overindulge on the pasta and cakes that were blessedly meat free. Unfortunately, I had to remove them from my diet as well once I had found out I had Celiac Disease. Still, even with an elimination diet that leaves me with only the good stuff (and most chocolate - thank goodness), I can’t say that my relationship with food is any better than the next girl's. In fact, it may be worse.
I never had that mother-daughter or grandmother-granddaughter or aunt-niece moment where I learned to express my feelings in the form of a beautiful meal. I love you was never said through a soufflé. My family did not come to this country to open a restaurant nor were there family recipes that taught me where my family came from. There was a German baker we went to a lot but I doubt that counts.
Instead, I taught myself to cook in a college dorm room with nothing but a microfridge. That meant mainly instant meals and leftover take-out, but I was creative in the blending. Once I had a real kitchen with blenders, mixers and an oven I thought cooking would come naturally and in some ways it did. But the joy did not.
I do not like watching cooking shows, I’d much rather watch Project Runway and I can barely sew a button back on, leastwise create a piece of clothing out of trash bags. I do not like cook books, I’d much rather read young adult novels and I haven't been 14 in a long time (but not THAT long, thank you very much). And I do not find a new blender, even if it is baby blue, an exciting toy. I find it heavy to move and time consuming to clean.
I appreciate healthy, tasty food very much. I just don’t like to make it. I have what my husband likes to call kitchen anger. When I do cook it’s like PMS 1000: do not talk to me, do not get in my way and do not offer to help. At first I thought it was an insecurity thing, I didn’t grow up cooking or really watching anyone else cook, but the few meals I have cooked, and my husband says that he can count them with one hand, have been rather good. By the time I’m done cleaning potatoes, cutting mushrooms and stirring the sauce though, I’m sick of looking at the food. I’m never less hungry than after I cook. It doesn’t matter how good it looks or smells. I’ve spent too much time with it and would rather pour myself some gluten-free Chex and be done with it.
I read the blogs and twitters of dozens of gluten-free people who turn to their creativity in the kitchen to deal with their strict, limited diet. They have found joy in making their own meals; joy that I’m immensely jealous of. Try as I hard as I do, I actually hate the kitchen even more now. Not just the anger it induces but the disappointment. I’m the type of person who could knock out a term paper or company letter in an hour and be proud of my use of a poetic phrase the same way someone can whip up a stew and savor the delicate hints of herbs. But just like someone who hates to write can wind up in tears over a deadline for a document or an all essay exam, I wind up weeping over mashed potatoes.
So I’m left to wonder, is it possible to live gluten-free happily and healthily without having to be a fabulous cook? Or even a mediocre one? Or how about one that doesn't find the whole process more frustrating than being hungry?
I'm worried that the only way to take charge of this disease is to be more than an angel in the kitchen but a downright miracle worker. If that is the case then I worry I may never have a handle on this thing.
I did read though that if you smile even when you are not happy the act of smiling will improve your mood. Maybe I should try that in the kitchen and it will defeat my animosity toward KitchenAid and Cuisinart.