As taxing as it can all be, I can honestly say that I enjoy cooking.
I love to see ingredients come together, batters rise, meats brown and veggies sauté. I’ve almost become like an X-Men character these days, ready to show off my culinary ability at the mention that someone is coming over or that my husband has a special request. As of late, I’ve been trying out new recipes, particularly native Nigerian ones to see what I can do since that’s what he loves. (My egusi soup is a hit, as is the jollof rice and dodo gizzard, the moi moi gets positive reviews, but we both agree that my meat pie is a bust). To see myself now, it’s funny to think about the fact that I sternly made it clear the night I met my husband that I’m no man’s cook.
I had just bought an oven mitt covered in Ghanaian wax-printed batik and taken my purchase straight from the store to dinner, ironically, at a Nigerian restaurant to meet a girlfriend. It was on this day, five years ago, that I met my husband. One of the first questions he asked of me, when he saw the mitt, was if I cooked. Thinking that meant he was going to expect me to be his personal chef if we hit it off, I said, “Yeah, I can cook if that’s what you’re asking. But I’m not about to be cooking like that.”
While his reaction was a light laugh and a playful placement of his hands in the air as if to say, “Hey, hey, hey, I’m just asking, lady,” there are men who expect the women they date (not married to) to throw down in the kitchen for them. However, this often becomes a thing that men take for granted in a relationship.
For instance, I have a girlfriend who has been with her boyfriend for years, and she’s an even better cook than me (she’s also a terrific baker). But while she goes out of her way to make him the dishes he likes and fancy designed cakes for his birthday, he’s not very grateful. When she cooks meals, he often starts eating before her. And while she finishes up frying, sauteeing, baking, or whatever she’s doing in the kitchen, he puts his plate in the sink, leaving her to wash dishes as he heads back to the couch to watch TV. When she asks him to wash dishes for her, he begrudgingly agrees to, but won’t do the pots: “That’s just too many and they should probably soak so you can wash them better later.”
Chai!
I also recently read in a relationship thread about a young woman who doesn’t cook well. She didn’t think that it was a big deal as she can make a few basics (spaghetti, fish, etc.), but when she shared this with a guy she was interested in, they both got a rude awakening.
While entertaining one another on a date, he asked her if she cooked and she responded with “Not really.” When he inquired as to what she meant, she jokingly said that she couldn’t cook to save her life. She thought it was funny, but she realized that he didn’t find anything humorous about such a revelation. “How do you not know how to cook?” he asked, as though being a woman came with recipes stored in the frontal lobes. She went on to say that it’s just not something she’s very good at. His response? “I just think it’s important to know how to cook. How do you expect to eat when you get married?” She facetiously replied, “Takeout.”
As it turned out, her lack of culinary skills was either part of one small problem too many or one major one, because she found herself trying to reach him more than he was looking to get in touch with her following that date.
So I guess my question is, how important is being able to cook for a woman looking to enter into a relationship? Is it petty to not want to turn into anyone’s personal chef just because you can boil and fry a few things and he all of a sudden is expecting you to do it every time he comes around?
As always, it’s important to set boundaries early on. While I do enjoy cooking, fresh into my relationship, I wasn’t doing it. We were getting to know each other — I wasn’t competing on MasterChef. I preferred to be taken out on the town as I felt that putting together a home-cooked meal was reserved for someone truly special. But even when you do, it should be recognized as a gift of sorts. It shouldn’t be constantly expected, even in marriage. And if you do decide to go out of your way to cook, your partner should be able to muster the strength to wash a few dishes and pots after the fact.
As for the last situation, I do think it’s important that people go after what they truly want, and if a man wants a future wife who can get her Julia Child on, that’s his preference. However, considering that he didn’t even give her a chance to try anything before he started going ghost, that’s not cool. Not to mention, he didn’t offer to teach her anything down the line (not even jokingly), which tells me that he’s either incredibly impatient or can’t cook his damn self. And I’m sorry, but if you can’t even make anything out of your own meals, you shouldn’t be expecting culinary perfection out of anyone else…
But as always, that’s just my opinion. What say you? Is it petty for a man to expect his girlfriend to cook for him often?
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