my personal chef
for many years, i prided myself on my cooking and the fact that i was the primary cook in my household, which i saw as an expression of my skill and taste and thrift and, also, mildly self-righteously, as a feminist gesture. when i was a secretary at the university, probably the peak of my cooking era because i spent some of my many free hours at work every week reading new recipes and guides and reviews and meal planning. i remember a cranky older accountant who in roasting her husband's inability to take care of himself (much less her) would talk about the domestic shortcomings of "you men" and i was like "NOT ALL YOU MEN I MAKE DINNER FOR MY WIFE EVERY NIGHT".
i don't now. i don't know exactly when or why i started to lose my love of cooking—the easy thing to blame is burnout from work and being completely drained at 5 PM every day, though i feel like there were other reasons i haven't fully grasped—but i do know the inflection point deborah started to find hers, which is when she decided to buy a very sharp japanese chef's knife. when it arrived, i made and announced a decision, which i think didn't matter to her at all but felt important to me, that the knife was going to be hers and hers alone and i was never going to use it, even if it was available and would be better for the job that i was doing in the kitchen at the time (i did the same thing when i bought her an electric guitar for christmas a couple of years ago: i didn't want to appropriate it for myself, which i knew i'd probably do unless i set such a rigid rule).
it was a lot more than the knife, but the knife seemed to be key that helped her unlock a vast pantry of skill and technique and i'm so thankful now, a couple of years since she got it, to know she's a far better cook than me, inarguably. whatever advantage i might have had through more years of practice and my white man confidence that i can improvise my way out of any situation, she's made up for and surpassed through hard work and study and (most wonderfully) learning to trust herself more and roll with the punches, to improvise and adapt recipes. she was always a happier baker than me (more patience and willingness to carefully follow instructions) but now she's unintimidated by the whole spectrum of cuisine. when i do cook still, usually sunday night dinner or weekend lunches, i mostly stick to the established repertoire i can do with my eyes closed, but she frequently makes brand-new recipes for dinner on a weeknight.
in the past, we cooked together more, but the kitchen we have in this house is very small and doesn't lend itself well to two people working at the same time (though i still like to mock the chef language from TV shows where contestants yell "behind!" and "heard!" when we have to coexist). something i've tried to do to bring the scales more into balance is make it my goal that there are never dirty dishes to deal with before it's time for her to cook, to always give my chef a clean slate on which to place her mise en place. it's not equivalent to the energy she spends cooking and i'm not 100% successful (sometimes i have an ill-timed morning meeting, sometimes she just gets in there faster than i do) but it feels important to me to try as a way of expressing my gratitude and respect for her effort and her growth. the other way i do that is by enjoying the fruits of her labor, like the chocolate chip cookies she made last night, and making my enjoyment very clear. they were hot out of the oven and i should have only had two but i had a third, which to be clear was not some symbolic gesture of wokeness but just because they were so fucking good and i couldn't help myself from having another.
