Men About the House

Another colleague's husband has just retired and she's still working so he has had to learn how to cook. However she still steadfastly refuses to let him loose on the ironing. Whilst working he couldn't work the heating system or the video but apparently he's learned to cook fast - (he's had to if he wants to stay retired she says).

The other day I had the day off. 'Should I cook the evening meal?', I offered to be met with the vehement response - 'Oh, no. Definitely not.' So what else was I supposed to do but sit in the garden in the sunshine next to our apple tree with a book and a glass of wine and wait for him coming in from work to start cooking?

On one occasion I did actually pick the lovely rosy apples and make a huge Apple Crumble...

My other half creates delicious curries from scratch. This takes hours using authentic ingredients, fresh herbs, fresh spices and chillies from a Pakistani supermarket in South Shields. Some of the veg I've never even seen before. This shop is a little paradise and he spends hours browsing through herbs and spices which are a quarter of the price compared with anywhere else.

And he gets lots of ideas from cookery programmes. Last week he cooked Ken Hom's "Stir Fry Pasta with Orange and Curry' and I have to admit it was amazing, a delicious work of art with oranges, garlic and peppers. My idea of cooking is a casserole where everything is bunged in together and shoved in the oven and forgotten about until ready.

He's always cooked because he used to work shifts and has always been in the house before me. He learnt his craft as a child by watching his mother cook like a farmer's wife, making her own bread, pastry, choux buns and vanilla slices, chutney, jam etc. She can hardly believe how things have changed round since her day. Her three sons can all cook yet her husband couldn't even boil an egg.

We also have two sons in our house who love to cook - but separately and usually straight after each other so I have plenty of cleaning up to do. They use blenders and mixers and as many pans and utensils as they possibly can. And they leave red onion skins all over the floor and in the cutlery drawer. And they put so many chillies in their pasta I can't possibly join in the eating process.

Son No One who was at University but is now living back at home thinks it's wonderful to have food in the fridge most of the time to cook with.

They all seem to share a passion for cooking for which I obviously lack the gene.
However I'm the only one in the house capable of cleaning the bird out - they can fill up the food dispenser and spill the water all over the sandpaper - but that's it. And they're all hopeless at putting stuff in the airing cupboard.

Still who am I to complain? It's obviously the way of the world now (or at least my part of it) that men do cooking. Oh well I suppose it's time to jump off my sun lounger and clean out the cutlery drawer...