Wildania Brito
The Hate You Cook Food With
My family has been a complicated one throughout the years. We have love and have hated each other all the time. Not only do the grown-ups have a love and hate relationship but the children do as well. I have had times where I feel as if I don’t belong and there have been times I’ve imagined that I am exactly where I need to be. I have horrible memories but have also had good times. Looking back at it now, as a family we have done pretty crazy things to each other but at the end of the day, the love we have for one another is unique and unrivaled. There was a moment in which I have a vivid memory, the time me and my cousins cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the entire family. This was for the same reason that we were constantly trying to get back at each other for stupid and childish things that we did to one another a which back. Our parents made a proposition to us, to cook Thanksgiving dinner together. We accepted because we believed it would be easy, but cooking something that is supposed to be meaningful to the entire family side by side with family members you can’t stand can be a total disaster. Cooking with love and respect makes any dish taste even better.
My closest cousins and I met when I was five years old. I had just flown into the United States from the Dominican Republic. I got bullied and mentally tortured by my cousins because I didn’t know or understand English. One year later, after all the mental breakdowns at age five they started approaching me a different way, a more friendly way. However, Marlin the cousin I lived with did not change her attitude towards me, she burned me with a freshly-made soup and didn’t even bother to look twice, at age five! This is where all my hatred for her came at the time. As time passed, we grew much older, me and my other cousin Wynnifer grew an unbreakable bond and this disturbed Marlin. Me and Wynnifer hit it off because she had stepped up for me when Marlin would try and take my lunch money away. Our other cousin Kimberly always believed she was better than all of us since she was the spoiled one. All four of us were forced to interact with one another because our parents believed nothing was ever wrong between the four of us. Marlin grew so much hate on me and Wynnifer’s friendship that she did anything to get out attention. She tried to talk to someone wynnifer was in love with, this made the anger between both of them grow even stronger, wynnifer never forgave her for this. This is where it all started, the hatred not one of us could ever forgive.
Our parents noticed this hostility and resentment between the four of us and decided that we needed to get along. They tried and tried to force us to become unified but achieved nothing. Thanksgiving dinner was approaching and they believed that by then we had to become the best of friends, I thought to myself “ Sheesh, I hope they know this ain’t gonna work.” I knew this was not going to work because we did not cross one word before, and we are not about to start now. One of our parents had the great idea of forcing us to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the entire family. They said that if we cooked Thanksgiving dinner synchronized and made it appetizing that we would all get new phones right away and that we would not be obliged to interrelate with one another ever again. The instant we heard not forced to associate with one another we accepted, is not like we had a choice anyway. Our parents gave us all the recipes and instructions on what and how were supposed to cook, but they also said the aura and mood you cook with will transmit to the food.
The second we begin to go our separate ways everything went sideways. We were dropping cooking supplies, dropping ingredients on the floor, everything was horrible. We all had a station to be on but what our parents didn’t mention is that for some items we needed to work together in order to make it right. We needed to work together to taste the food, getting ingredients when one couldn’t leave the stove unattended. We had no communication, we didn’t even want to make eye contact and I have had enough of it. I screamed, “STOP, we are acting childish and we are hating each other for things that happened years ago. We are making this worse. Marlin, I forgive you for treating me like Sh**, and Kimberly you are not better than anyone else, we know you grew up spoiled but this does not give you the right to treat us any less. we are all equal or did they not teach you that in your history class?” after this was said everyone stopped what they were doing, Wynnifer forgave Marlin for trying to take away the person she loved and even joked about it. In addition, Marlin asked everyone to forgive her for everything wrong she had done, including burning me at age five and messing with Wynnifer’s boo thing. I decided to step up, we all spoke about the issues we had and decided to help each other out. One would help the other one getting the groceries they needed, the other helped add ingredients while the other stirred. We created a full course meal for the entire family but the best thing of all was that we did it with love and that vibe was demonstrated in the food.
In closing, things have to be talked through in order to forgive and forget. My family saw something different in us, a distance never understood. Sometimes you have to be the bigger person and stop the nonsense no matter how much pain was caused. We learned that cooking passion and love makes a big difference, makes the food tastes way better. We also learned that You will never move on in life if you don’t forgive and forget. Things did turn out to be perfect for us that night after all.
