Look, I’m just going to be real with you guys, I don’t find any pleasure in cooking. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been excited to make something. Cooking to me is a chore and whoever coined the phrase, “a woman’s place is in the kitchen,” should go down in history as one of the worst humans on Earth.
I just don’t see how making something, only for it to be gone a short time later is rewarding. When I make shit, I want to see the fruits of my labor. As some of you know, I’m a pretty good seamstress and there’s satisfaction when I’ve completed a skirt or a drape. I have something to show for it.
And during that rare moment I am excited to make something, I’m usually taken aback by the cost of the stuff and the lack of availability. Here’s usually what the recipe looks like:
- Angus steak from a grass-fed albino horse $23.99 a pound
- 1/8 tablespoon of daisy powder $6.99 a jar
- 3 onions diced by hand $1 a pound
- 1/4 cup Canadian Worcestershire Sauce (found only at Whole Foods) $9
Obviously the above recipe is fictitious, so please don’t go out and look for Canadian Worcestershire Sauce. But seriously, that’s what it feels like recipes call for; a tablespoon of something you’ll never use for the rest of your life. Because of this, I substitute shit all the time.
My life of subbing ingredients in recipes, then ruining the recipe, started at a very young age. I can remember my first experience when my best friend and I decided we were going to make pizza. It’s not lost on me that my father owned an Italian restaurant for 25 years, known for his pizza. Here’s the ingredients for our “pizza”:
- Dough (we actually had real dough. Unfortunately, that would be the most pizza part of this concoction)
- Ketchup (this was supposed to be the pizza sauce. It was red so we deduced it was an appropriate substitute)
- Kraft American cheese slices sliced up into small pieces (this represented “shredded” provolone cheese)
- The meat of a White Castle burger (this acted as the pepperoni. If you’ve never had a White Castle, allow me to spare you the diarrhea and say, don’t eat them. Ever.)
So far this week, I’ve made beef lo mein, border shrimp with cilantro rice and all-American meatloaf. I’m sick as fuck of cooking and prepared to serve Lunchables for tomorrow’s dinner. I literally can’t make another meal. Call me a cry baby but I work 8 hours a day, have a 1.5 hour commute round trip, shuttled kids back and forth to soccer practice daily, made lunches and folded laundry. So excu-se-moi if I’m not in the mood to cook a 3-course meal tomorrow.
So yeah, there isn’t a plot to this post. Just that I hate to cook and I don’t intend to cook tomorrow. Thank you very much and good night Cleveland.
Hire someone to come and cook for you! Lol I’ll do it! I love cooking
Your hired! And you can watch my kids for me too! LOL!! What is your favorite thing about cooking?
Yes of course I can! I’ll be your 1950’s housewife haha! And my fav part is the dance party in the kitchen while cooking 😉
Dance party? I could get on board with that! I do cook with music!
Heck yes!! How can you cook without a little twerking? Hehe
Ok, I can’t twerk but I can tweet. Does that count?
Hehe I can’t twerk either that’s half the fun!
I’ve always hated cooking (and being in the kitchen in general). I’m single and I live alone so I’ll cook once on Saturday morning and meal prep all my lunches for the rest of the week. During the workweek I don’t touch my stove/oven at all. I work full-time, Mon-Fri so the LAST thing I want to do in my leisure time is be in the kitchen.
Agreed! It’s such a chore. That’s pretty impressive you meal prep on Saturdays. My meal prep consists of staggering downstairs at 6:15 in the morning, still hung over and putting together my sons’ lunches as well as mine. It resembles the lunch making scene in Overboard.
All the men in my family on every side cook. When I was doing shift work Cyberspouse did all the cooking. Mostly we share, same with the other branches, but a cousin’s wife and a nephew’s wife NEVER cook. I don’t mind, but cooking comes after writing and gardening. Time taken to make a roast dinner from the moment you put meat in the oven till it’s served up ( also brought washing off the line, put out the rubbish bin, done some tidying) – one hour forty five minutes. Time taken for Cyberspouse to eat dinner – 5 minutes.
Exactly! Your last sentence articulated my frustration. An hour to cook a meal that is scarfed down. I don’t know what I’m thinking my children will do? Eat slowly and tell us about their day in school between bites? No! It’s 8:15 PM, they just got back from soccer practice and our dinner table resembles the carcass of a dead animal with 4 vouchers, feeding!
Yes, it is rough when you have to cook every day for a family that really does not appreciate it most of the time. I did it for years. My guy is a very picky eater, so… fine… we eat out most of the time. He can eat fish or steak every meal and I can eat what I want.
So you totally understand Sheila! I swore I wouldn’t cook last night and I did. So I am going to swear again that tonight is the night I’m not cooking!
What a wonderful funny posting. Love your pizza recipe too. ***lol***. If you hate cooking for yourself or only for two, why not cooking in community. Look here: koolkosherkitchen.wordpress.com. Dr. Dolly provides a online cooking course via phone or internet. Isnt it fantastic? Best wishes, Michael.
Thank you for the compliment and thanks Michael for the tip! I’ll check it out!
Thank you, and have a great weekend. Must not be with pizza. ***lol*** Michael
You too! LOL!
I love to cook, but can’t even sew a button on a shirt! My mom was Susie Homemaker….I mean she made our clothes, our horse blankets, chaps, knitted us and everyone we knew sweaters, but she couldn’t cook worth crap. In fact, most of what she cooked, tasted like crap! Mom was the leader of the Crochet group for 4-H and I was the ONLY person who didn’t finish their project. ??♀️. She was less than impressed. I think I will stick to cooking!
We have similar upbringings in the respect that my mother could not cook AT ALL but her mom could. I can sew tons of stuff, I hate to cook but can cook. I see it as a chore.