The Great Retirement Cooking Challenge

It’s no secret that food is always a favorite topic among retirees.  My wife always comes home with recipes to try, and she gets the scoop on any good restaurants in the area.  We got the idea to try what we called a Retirement Cooking Challenge, and it has gotten some interest especially since the price of eating out seems to have taken another increase.  It’s actually a pretty simple idea.

A friend of ours brought over some homemade eggplant parmigiana for us to try.  We were quite excited because we had heard so much about it.  It was very good, but we had to be honest with him that it wasn’t the best we had ever had.  That got him curious.  If there was an eggplant better than his, he had to try it.  Much discussion followed about what makes a good eggplant parmigiana and how do you go about making it at home.  The fun we had just discussing the topic reminded us about all the cooking competitions you see on television and the question we came up with was not create a little competition at home?  The Retirement Cooking Challenge was born.

Now we are very aware that this is not an original idea.  The difference is (and the real challenge) is that we became determined to try to make it happen among our friends who like to cook. We’ve seen shows like Bobby Flay who takes on just about any chef and tries to make their signature dish better than they do.  And we have had small cook offs ourselves to determine who made the best onion soup.  But when you get people outside your family involved it can really take on a life of its own.  Cooking and seasoning are highly personal and that’s part of the fun.  Losing a contest doesn’t always mean you should change your recipe.  I make a perfect Margarita but nobody likes it but me because they all want a sugary blend that tastes more like limeade than tequila, triple sec and lime juice poured into a salt rimmed glass.  This is based on my first experience when I was in college and tequila was almost unheard of and rumored to always have a worm in the bottle.  But I digress a bit.

The Retirement Cooking Challenge Can Span a Lifetime

You can easily make a Retirement Cooking Challenge part of your social calendar and you’ll be surprised at how much fun it can be.  It can save you a little money by not having to dine out as often but still offer you that chance to get exceptional food.  The discussions that take place are part of the fun and you’ll come to realize how much pleasure there is in experiencing good food.  My wife and I always list dining out as one of our hobbies and we love trying new restaurants and coming home to duplicate what we just experienced.  Copying success is the ultimate form of flattery and there have been many restaurants that we have tried to copy.  It’s not an accident that many restaurants offer their dressings or sauces in jars and, although it loses something when it’s not fresh, some of the purchases we have made have turned out very well. 

The interesting thing about this whole Retirement Cooking Challenge concept is that it can get a person who has never cooked before interested in becoming a part of the activities.  And no one has to know whether you took shortcuts.  You obviously can’t order a takeout meal from a restaurant and pretend it’s your own creation, but you don’t have to necessarily cook from scratch either.  Anyone who has worked and comes home trying to cook dinner knows that creating a meal from scratch is not always possible.  I’ve used jarred sauces many times, but most people think I make it fresh because I sauté some finely chopped onions and add some fresh basil which takes very little extra time.

That’s part of the fun of cooking for someone who has never been trained but gets motivated by those cooking shows where the contestants have to work with the designated ingredients and prepare a blockbuster dish within a certain amount of time.  They’re fun to watch and you question some of the strategies they use but there’s one thing that I hate about those shows – the time factor.  I don’t want any pressure.  I had enough deadlines forced upon be during my forty plus years as part of Corporate America. When I cook, I want to relax, and a friendly round of a Retirement Cooking Challenge is about as competitive as I want to get.

Try it out for fun.  If you like to cook and especially if you like to eat, liven things up with your own Chili cook off or bread making contest.  A Retirement Cooking Challenge might be just what you need to liven things up.  Bon Appetit!  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

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