March / April 2006:

confessions of a jewish bride #136:
i have no clue how to cook
Jamie Geller has something to confess. She can't cook. At all. She's Jewish. She's married. Could this be a problem?

Essay by Jamie Geller | Photo by Richard Lloyd


Let me get right to the point here. In my former life, I was not religious, not married, and not building a career from a spare bedroom in my apartment. I was a single, highly motivated — or rather high-strung — Manhattan career girl who didn’t know the difference between a potato chip and a potato peeler. I used my oven to store sweaters and my phone to order up dinner. Looking to marry “a nice Jewish man,” I ended up at some Torah lectures disguised as singles events and before you could say “born again” I was in the Holy Land.

Back from seminary in Israel, I did a lot of dating and became engaged to a man I met all of six times. We were married in two months and had our first baby thirteen months later — which is when I gave up my full-time job as a producer for HBO. I used to travel all over the country, and even overseas interviewing actors and musicians that are better known than most world leaders. With the birth of our daughter, I decided to leave it all for my true love, my family — heartwarming and romantic, isn’t it? Well, that’s where the story begins, not ends.

Since I neglected to tell hubby that I couldn’t cook very well, or at all. And that I actually needed directions to the stove. I decided to prove myself, not just in the kitchen but as an entrepreneur (you always feel you have something to prove by leaving a career for homemaking). So I am writing a chick-lit/autobiographical/self-help kosher cookbook: The 15-Minute Kosher Cookbook: Fast and Easy Recipes from the Bride Who Knew Nothing (to be published later this year — shameless plug — well at least I have material for my next confession).

I don’t know if my secretive cooking past or lack thereof is up there with the other great sins: lying, cheating, stealing? I surely hope not. It’s just that I figured I had other things to offer — my career accomplishments, my charming personality, my fashion sense? Only, I soon realized that insider details on Gwenyth’s new film and a pair of stiletto boots does not a happy marriage or a hot meal make. When hubby ended up cooking almost all our meals that first year of newlywed bliss — I knew I was in for some major payback.

The only problem is now that I am writing the book, I am way too busy writing that I have no time to cook. It’s just been take-out and cold cereal. Go figure.



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