I look JUST like this. Via gcacho @ Flickr.
“My mother was a good recreational cook, but what she basically believed about cooking was that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you.”
–Nora Ephron
In the bad old days, cooking was hot, dirty, tedious and exhausting, which is precisely why the Patriarchy assigned it to us (see also: cleaning and child-care). Cooking was ladybusiness and a lady was only as good as the meals she cranked out. As for the rare women who couldn’t cook, well, they were suspect–definitely lazy and maybe even bluestockings!
This mentality hasn’t shifted much, even in these more enlightened times. When Hillary Clinton infamously disaparaged the hallowed domestic arts of baking and hostessing with her comment, “I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession,” the media–and the right-wing–lost their ever-loving minds. The fuss wasn’t just because HRC was standing up for her career but because she was simultaneously rejecting her womanly duty to slave over some cookie sheets. We can safely presume that she could have mitigated the uproar by saying: “Oh, I’m committed to my career, but I still find time to cook for my family.” The problem was that she clearly didn’t seem to regret not baking those cookies. Like Nora Ephron’s mom, HRC was making the point that cooking is not something all women feel compelled to do. Fortunately, women’s lib now gives a lot of us the economic power to outsource it, and for many high-earning women of my acquaintance, there’s a certain pride that comes with announcing: “I had it catered” and “I never cook.”
To my mind, it’s the perfect Catch-22 for women these days: If you aren’t cooking, you’re neglecting your family. Bad mother! If you like cooking, you’re an unliberated throwback. Bad feminist!
So where does that leave those of us who do double duty as feminists and cooks? In yesterday’s comments thread about PhDork’s post about wifely doormattery, frequent commenter baraqiel noted: “stuff like this makes me look at cooking and get the anti-feminist nasties from it, which, hey: get your patriarchy off my hobbies.”
Amen, sister. I’m a feminazi bonerkiller with a successful career who kicks ass in the kitchen. My love of cooking is equal parts nature and nurture: I love to eat, and I’m half Southern Methodist and half New York Jewish, both cultures which absolutely revere home cooking. I could never be Carrie Bradshaw, storing my magazines in my unused oven.
As for gender equity in the kitchen, I confess that I judge men and women equally when they say they can’t cook. Granted, most of the people I know who can’t cook are men, but I have one or two female friends who never learned either. This strikes me as somewhat preposterous. Do you eat? Yes? Then why can’t you make your own meals? I’m not saying you need to whip up souffles and beef Wellington for 10, but basic cooking is something everyone should know.
The joys of cooking are many: it’s a meditative act, a creative act, a sensual act and joyful act (unless your sauce breaks or you start a grease-fire or leave something in the oven too long, in which case, it’s an exercise in frustration and swearing). It’s not, however, a gender-specific act, or at least, it shouldn’t be. Whether I’m baking a cake or making my mom’s two-day chicken soup or whisking an alfredo sauce, it’s all about me and my dinner. The Patriarchy is not invited.
I can follow instructions, but I can’t really wing it (yet). However, I feel like there’s an important factor of whom you are cooking for. I have no problem cooking for myself; I didn’t think it was odd that my ex cooked for the two of us most of the time (he truly enjoyed it and knew what he was doing; neither of those is quite true for me). Yet I have made dinner at my current boyfriend’s house twice, and it felt odd–in part because it wasn’t my kitchen, but also because the man cannot even begin to boil water (he is from a foreign country where men do not enter the kitchen–zero of his male friends can cook), so I felt like I was performing some sort of service.
Does that even make sense?
@DangerMouse: Yeah, I get that. If your boyfriend can’t cook and you’re doing it at his house for him, it’s hard not to feel like there’s some level of service/entitlement going on. I’ve been in the same situation and as long as the dude was complimentary and acted like I was doing him a favor–which I was–then I was cool with it. But if he’d acted like I was just fulfilling an obligation, he’d have been in trouble.
Cooking has been one of the most fraught issues for me, in my marriage. On the one hand, my husband can cook, quite well, when he wants to. On the other hand, I love to cook, find it meditative and relaxing for the most part, and sort of took over the kitchen when we moved into our house. Eventually, I think it got to a point where my husband didn’t feel welcome in the kitchen any more, where he felt like if he tried to cook something, he’d be ruining plans I had already made. And all at the same time, I suddenly began to feel like I wasn’t having fun cooking anymore– I was just feeling obligated.
There may or may not have been a brief meltdown in which all of this came to light. Now we’re cooking together a lot more, I’m comfortable NOT cooking when I don’t really feel like it, and my husband has turned out to be a salsa-making whiz. Bottom line: I like to cook, most of the time, but when it starts to feel more like something I’m doing because I have to, rather than because I want to, the joy gets killed.
And it’s so hard to figure out where this obligated feeling COMES from. I really think it’s mostly in my head, because of my Susie Homemaker stepmom. No one in MY house is sad if we have chips and dip for dinner, and yet somehow her voice is in my head telling me I’ve failed. I’m getting better at tuning it out.
As usual, Wordy McWord to your entire post. I love to cook, especially desserts, and I prefer to cook for other people. It is somehow just sad to make chicken for one, soup for one…although cake for one is always welcome. I have the double whammy going on, because I also like to sew (I have made around 20 quilts), and clearly, that conflicts with my having a professional career and going to law school. I say cook on for those who appreciate the love.
Funnyface, I know what you mean. I’m happy to be in charge of the cooking, but on the (mostly rare) occasions when I feel like I’m being taken for granted, it ruins it for me. The other thing is, my mother-in-law is a famously good cook, and I worry that if I feed my husband too well, I’m like his new mommy. I passive-aggressively refuse to bake pie because that’s her specialty, and it squicks me out to be compared to his mother in terms of how well I cater to him.
BTW, this week’s New Yorker has a long profile on Nora Ephron and food, particularly how she loves to cook for family and friends. (Or is that where the quote is from?)
Oy, I had an incredibly long response and then my internet dropped out when I hit submit. The gist of my vanished comment was that I don’t cook (at all), but when I did cook years ago, it was usually to bake. Baking is viewed as being even more “girly” than cooking, at least that’s how I feel that most people perceive it. But I baked because I needed to get the Christmas cookies done, and I would have felt the same way regardless of the genitalia I wielded. Besides which, I grew up with a mother who absolutely CANNOT cook (seriously, the woman once set a chicken on fire while making dinner) and a father and stepfather who are brilliant chefs. While I have issues with cooking, they’ve really never been gendered ones. The fact that I don’t cook isn’t a statement about my views on gender roles, it’s that being in a kitchen surrounded by ingredients is enough to give this Harpy a panic attack — no exaggeration. So I’m slightly in awe of those who can do more than just make soup without getting freaked out.
Now, I have to partake in a cup of coffee for breakfast. I made it all by myself!
Sometimes I wonder if the retro-feminist back to baking, cupcake-obsessed movement isn’t partially because it is totally unnecessary, it’s never your JOB to make cupcakes, it’s just the fun creative part. I enjoy cooking in a kind of survivalist way but my partner is so superior at it and enjoys it so much we’ve simply split up our duties so that he cooks and I clean the kitchen.
I actually kind of hate the weird anti-cooking = feminism thing that some women seem to embrace. The “Oh, I only use my oven for storage!” meme. It’s like not cooking makes them somehow more sophisticated.
If you don’t like to cook, then don’t – but don’t act like my ability to make a custard or bolognese from scratch makes me less of a feminist, or somehow beneath you. In reality, it means I probably eat better and cheaper than you do, leaving me more money for all those Jimmy Choos! (Er, kidding about that last part.)
Sadly, I have to report that using one’s oven as a cabinet is not limited to Carrie and her ilk. I once went to a friend’s house to help her bake chocolate chip cookies, as the first time she tried she decided that she could use white sugar in place of brown (false), preheated the oven, and only discovered the box of donuts that her mother was keeping in there 10 minutes later by the smell of burning plastic. Her mom’s an avid baker, but still…
I’ve been pondering aspects of this since the post yesterday (thanks for the shoutout, by the way!) and finding it pretty tangled. For one thing, the way that we eat now is both incredibly fraught and incredibly different from how it was in the era these stereotypes cite. Given how much cooking interesting food with quality ingredients has become the purview of those with enough time and money to do so, there are a ton of class issues here (and what does it mean if cooking good food is an important part of performing femininity and poor women don’t have the resources to do so?). On top of that, very few people of my acquaintance eat a sit-down dinner at a table every night. Even though I cook every night, my boyf and I eat on our couch with laptops as often as not. Which raises the question of what “cooking a meal” implies about domesticity, responsibility, formality, etc.
But I agree with you about basic cooking skills. When I go back for my senior year, my boyf is going to have to fend for himself until I graduate and he’s going to be a sad, sad person if all he eats for dinner is veggie burgers.
I can’t afford NOT to cook at home at least four or five nights a week! I think that people who always eat out are demonstrating quite a bit of monetary privilege. Also, I think cooking at home allows me to make sure my food comes from a more local place, which is better for the planet in the long run.
We have a good set-up where I do the cooking and he does ALL the cleaning up and the dishes. This arrangement is totally awesome in my opinion.
I think we’re tripping on the idea that cooking has been traditionally a low-status thing to do, and therefore associated with women.
We need to remove the stigma of cooking and I think the gender implications will go with it. Or is it that we need to remove the gender implications and the stigma will go with it?
Darn chicken-and-egg issues.
Well, Nimue, cooking is not just for women anymore. But when men do it, they’re chefs, and they get paid.
SarahMC makes a good point that I didn’t want to tackle in this post b/c it would have gone on forever, which is that the restaurant world, especially haute cuisine, is one of the last bastions of utter male chauvinism and exclusivity.
Due, of course, to the fact that if something’s seen as lucrative and worthwhile, it’s obviously a man’s domain. Women should stick to the domestic sphere when it comes to cooking.
It seems that we have to get to a place where we can say every adult is completely and totally responsible for feeding themselves. Beyond that, I on’t think it makes any difference if one purchases food or cooks from scratch. If you don’t expect someone else to feed you then any other choice is great, in my book.
I had read somewhere quote from a 70′s “career woman”, no citation sorry, who said that the best thing she did for her career was NOT learning how to type, and I think the women who turn their noses up at cooking are decsended from that same school. But, things have changed, because cooking (and typing) have become easier. Now everyone (as far as I know) does their own typing, and hopefully cooking will trend that way as well.
Personally, I have a policy that if I feel like cooking anyone who is present is welcome to join my meal (including my boyf.) but I won’t be obligatd to cook, and if he cooks I might eat his food or I might want something else and make or buy that. These aren’t group decisions, except when their are children involved, food, and taste and appetite are very personal things.
Over the nearly nine years my husband and I have been together (most of that spent dating, of course), cooking has been such a huge part of the time we spend together. Starting out it was helping him make marinara at a friend’s twin house for a party that weekend to feed twelve of our closest friends, and now it’s enjoying a nice meal after 12+ hour days spent at our respective jobs. For a long time I let him lead in the kitchen after picking the night’s recipe and was content to watch him do so, but especially in the last year or so, the itch to take a knife to an onion became too powerful to ignore–and the time I’ve spent since doing everything from poaching eggs to blending pistous to kneading pizza dough has brought me such an immense pleasure because it really feels good making things from scratch.
But it does take practice, and it almost always requires you to mess up here and there along the way, but every great cook has fucked up at some point (and usually more than once). You have to laugh it off and make sure you have a backup (i.e. take-out menus), and try again another day.
@Spark: I have my New Yorker in my purse right now but I haven’t read it! I’m 99% sure that quote is from Nora Ephron’s novel Heartburn.
@bellacoker: Completely agree with you about how everyone has to be able to feed themselves. I don’t agree, however, with the whole “I never learned to type so I did better in the workplace” approach (and yeah, I know women like that too). To me, ignorance is never a positive. If men are ignorant and incompetent, is that a good reason for us to be ignorant and incompetent too?
Just because a woman knows how to type, or to cook, doesn’t mean she automatically will be forced into some subservient secretary/housewife role. She can still choose to do or not do those things regardless.
Preach it, Ms.Sharper!
I’ve been tackling such issues in my own writing. I love to cook, and there is nothing unfeminist about knowing a useful skill.
Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but I also wrote about the male chef thing:
http://sirensmag.com/2009/05/feminoshing-why-are-most-chefs-men/
@JetGirl: Great minds think alike! That’s a good piece–thanks for sharing!
I have definitely pretended to be a very bad cook to avoid being forced into domesticity. Growing up in India, I remember when my grandma very seriously told my mother that it was about time I learnt how to cook a proper Indian meal from start to finish. I was only 10. My mother wasn’t really keen on my cooking skills: she prioritized my homework and education above those skills, and also because she never knew how to cook until my father taught her the basics after their wedding. However, for huge festivals (which we have many) and family get-togethers you were forced into the kitchen. The only respite was to be very slow and do a really bad job, then I got banished from the kitchen. I could then read books beyond what was required in school because I had free time.
Part of the reason my extended family agreed to let me leave home at 17 for a really good college was because I was so useless at cooking & sewing that I might as well get a decent education and a career, because I wasn’t going to make a good match (I was also ugly according to my grandma, so that helped too). Having a career meant my un-marriageable self won’t be a burden on my parents.
Now I am finishing up my PhD which is what I wanted and I am a fabulous cook – if I say so myself. Come over for anytime for Indian, Thai or Italian.
Anyway, my point is, there is something to the “I never learnt to type or cook” thing especially when you are getting indoctrinated into a lifestyle at a very young age. I am not saying that ignorance and incompetence is positive or that we should be that way because men get to be so. But sometimes, it does help getting out of oppressive obligations. I think I would have still gotten to this point no matter what because my parents are very supportive and I am really stubborn. Pretending to be a bad cook and seamstress made it easier to find time to pursue writing and study subjects that I wouldn’t otherwise have the time or energy for.
And when I discovered my love for cooking, it was at least a bit free of the baggage I normally associated it with.
Sorry for the long rant, hope I made some sense.
@spicyplum: That makes perfect sense. Of course, you’re saying you PRETENDED to be a bad cook, which isn’t the same as actually being willfully ignorant. You were playing dumb to get out of the patriarchy-imposed kitchen duty so you could do what you wanted to do!
Not to get wildly off topic, but SarahMCs point about women cook at home and men are chefs reminded me that yesterday Gawker ran a piece about the new ad on Lifetime for Project Runway and how bad it was cause its all about *gasp* women now and it got me thinking about how most great fashion designers are men but “sewing” is womens work traditionally. I think its the same principle, in that women are the drudges and men are the creative geniuses. Sorry to threadjack but I think the two sort of dovetail.
Also, I hate cooking, which is why I do the dishes.
I’m someone who pretended they couldn’t cook for years because of my paranoia about this and then one day i just gave in because I love cooking. When I was growing up my mother was at work until 7 or 8pm most nights, she taught me to cook and my sister and brother to do the washing up, ironing and cleaning (I have no idea why it fell out this way but she divided the tasks for ease I suspect). To this day my sister and brother are terrible cooks but very tidy people with great ironing skills while i love cooking but have never ironed anything in my life.
Anyway I do get great pleasure out of it, I love having people over for lunch and dinner and I find it a soothing activity. I’ve never baked though – largely because it requires accuracy which i’m less keen on. Oh yes and I agree with whoever said they couldn’t afford to eat out, nor can I and recently I’ve become remarkably creative with very few ingredients, which has been both a surprise and quite pleasurable.
BlueBears – also absolutely correct – see writers too – when men write at home it is a job, when women do it it is something they are doing for a hobby or should be fitting around their childcare.
I tell you what, having kids has absolutely killed my love of cooking. I still love to bake, but that’s only on occasion. I used to love the end of the day, thinking about what sounded good for dinner, stopping by the store on the way home, and spending easily an hour with a glass of wine and good music preparing dinner for my husband and myself. It was my way to relax and unwind. I’d cook, he’d do the dishes. Perfection.
Now I have about 30 minutes from the time we all get home to when dinner has to be ready, and it has to be kid-friendly fare. My kids aren’t picky, but many things are still out (especially spicy things, dammit!). And you can’t be shopping every day in these circumstances, so goodbye spontaneity! Forget the myth that having kids kills your sex drive, it kills your cook drive! Bah!
I’m sure once they’re older things will get better, but for now I look forward to a time when this bonerkilling feminazi get’s to reclaim her love of cooking.
@krismcn: I strongly suspect MamaSharper would agree with you. She’s a good creative cook, but now that the kids are grown and gone, she’s all about new recipes and ingredients, and having a glass of wine in the kitchen. I think our moving out helped her get her cooking groove back.
@emilyanne: Totally agree about baking. Cooking you can improvise and if you lack something, you can substitute something else or mess with the measurements. Baking is more like chemistry–no room for creativity. Hence, I do a lot more cooking than baking.
I can cook just fine, but I don’t take any pleasure in it. I do it because…that’s how you get food that isn’t (1) crazy expensive and/or (2) packed with crap. We make basic stuff five nights a week and get take out one night that feeds us for two. It works great for us.
I like to bake and make ice cream, but those are hardly every day activities. Once a week, max. Now that I have a baby, more like once a month.
@Becky:
Oh, I completely agree with that now, but can see the stance as a holdover from a time when it was, perhaps, necessary. If the menz were passing this lady typing because all of the other women in the company were secretaries, it was probably good for her to be able to say: I don’t do that, give it to a secretary.
I think acceptable gender roles have widened quite a bit since then, but definitely not enough. So, having, using, and enjoying typically “female” skills doesn’t limit us to only being able to do those things, but we’re all our historical context.
Spicyplumchatni, that is so interesting. I would like to come over for some of your cooking, for sure.
@bellacoker – yes, but there’s a difference between “I don’t” and “I can’t”. Perhaps in a time when the only people who were capable typists were secretaries, being deliberately incapable made sense. Nonetheless, things like typing and cooking are useful skills to have; the stronger stance would have been saying, “I am able to do this, but I’m not going to do it for you”.
@baraqiel:
Absolutely!
@bellacoker: ^_^ I agreed with your point, but wanted to add. I find that converstations here often lead to such interesting corollaries. For example, being a very good typist is now more of a high-status skill, I think. The best typists I know are people who write code for a living, which is nominally a high-status occupation. However, it’s also a male-dominated ocupation, and it’s unclear to me whether the status of typing as a skill was raised due to its increase in general usefulness and the “difficulty” or required education level, etc. of the profession with which it’s associated, or due to the gender swap.
@baraqiel: Don’t you think some of typing’s ascendancy has to do with e-mail and MSWord being mandatory in the workplace? Now if you can’t type, you’re truly crippled in a white-collar environment. These days you can’t just shunt off your memos onto the office “girl.”
MamaSharper groomed me for the white collar life and she insisted that I take typing. It was the only time that she ever said, “you WILL sign up for this class.” So I took typing–on typewriters–in 8th grade. Haven’t used a typewriter in over a decade, but as long as we’re using QWERTY keyboards, I’m set. There are a fair number of people–both men and women–who I know who never learned to type and it’s definitely made their lives more difficult and makes them look like dumbasses.
@BeckyShaper: Oh, definitely. But I guess I would draw a distinction between people who know how to type and people who are really good at typing. I type pretty quickly — people often comment on it the first time they’re around me and a computer at the same time — but my typing skills are nothing compared to my father, who’s been a programmer for 25 years. There’s an amount of facility with a keyboard (and not just QWERTY, either, but oftentimes DVORAK and other alternative configurations) that I most often find in men, and that was probably more often found, in years past, in women. But at the same time I may be conflating typing skills with general technological know-how. Do you know if secretaries were able to do basic maintenance on their own typewriters? I’m assuming that they were from hearing about how often typewriters jammed and had to be toggled with. In which case, it seems to me that being able to fix a typewriter did not have the status that being able to fix a computer now does.
@baraqiel: Typewriters were much easier to fix than computer hardware–they’re relatively simply machines when it comes to trouble-shooting. Even I knew how to mess around with them a little–we learned it in class. Computer hardware/software is just in a different league, and programming is leagues different from secretarial work (and more lucrative and more of a science field, hence why it’s male dominated).
Most people I know can type but never learned actual technique, so they don’t use their whole hands and they can’t look at the screen and type the way I can. Once, when I was in the Middle East, I was at an internet cafe that had only Arabic-language keyboards. But there was a language pack installed that made it a QWERTY keyboard for English software. Because I know how to touch-type, I had no problem typing on it, even though I literally did not recognize a single character on that keyboard. I was so grateful that day that my mom had made me take traditional touch-typing!
I find that most people are totally weirded out (and most women are jealous) because my husband LOVES to cook. We used to cook together (like 15 years ago) but, while I love good food, it just isn’t my favorite thing to do. He finds it relaxing to whip up a meal after a long day at work and, man, is he good at it. But, for me, it is the last thing I want to do after work. The kitchen is the domain of Mr. BookGeek. Knitting is my thing. When I learned to do it (in college from an electrical engineering student at MIT) my mother and sister were appalled at my new antifeminist hobby. Then I started making things for them and they decided it wasn’t so bad. Then it became fashionable and my sister had me teach her. There is always someone to give us a hard time about something.
baraqiel–I used to be able to do basic maintenance on my typewriter, which I had to use for some archaic legal forms when I was a part-time secretary for six years. I can also type quickly, unjam printers and photocopiers, and sound pleasant on the phone. Whee.
BookGeek, my boyf is more of a cook than I am too. When we ate dinner together every night (when we lived in the same town), we had fun planning good, varied meals. We bought cooking mags and tried new things a lot. Now that I’ve been cooking for myself for a few years the joy is completely gone. He likes to cook, and I can count on not eating the same dinner two nights in a row when we’re at his place. But I haven’t done anything exciting in the kitchen in years. I have a few old standbys I stick to and even preparing that is a drag. Bah humbug.
Becky – i’m a big touch typer as well – i actually took a proper course in it on an old-fashioned typewriter at 17 because, well why not. It means that i am the fastest typist I know and never look at the screen. Hmm i do seem to be collecting the traditional female skills today – i have ace shorthand too.
@becky – I’m with you on the “skill is always a plus.” I see my mother as a cautionary tale in the “I don’t type” realm. She did decide not to learn to type in the 1950s, nor to take shorthand, and that ended up being crucial to her gaining respect as the only female lawyer in a big downtown NYC firm. At the time. Otherwise they would have treated her like a secretary. So in that case, it avoided oppression similarly to spicyplumchatni’s case. However, it ended up biting her in the end, since as computers became popular, she just couldn’t stay with it. So consequently, it’s so frustrating for her to type email that she just doesn’t anymore. So from that, I think I learned that it’s good to make a point sometimes, stick your head up and stand up for yourself and your skills. But it’s crucial to stay up-to-date as the world changes, too.
And I totally agree with you that all people, male, female, and anything in between, needs to be able to feed themselves, and in a pinch, someone else, too, at least passably. Our son WILL learn to cook, and he’ll have two good teachers – both me and his dad.
@BeckySharper – I agree with you about hardware, that takes expertise. But most software is really easy to deal with. Especially in terms of the common IT problems one would run into in a workplace — those almost never require any programming skills to speak of and only rarely do they demand anything as deep as going into the registry. This is exactly what I mean — programming is challenging and scientific and therefore male-dominated, but, having both basic IT experience and clerical experience, I can honestly say that they are roughly equal in how much creative thinking and intelligence they demand. And yet, the one’s much more “high status” than the other.
@DangerMouse – well, sounding pleasant on the phone is a lot further than I ever got. One day I actually broke out laughing at a guy who’d failed to read some forms and therefore made a mistake that cost him some money. My boss was not so happy…
I took typing, too. On a typewriter. 10th grade, maybe? “Ay Ess Dee Eff Jay Kay Ell Sem.” I wonder if typing is still taught in the States, since computing/keyboards are so prevalent. And I don’t know anyone who doesn’t touch-type. Maybe that’s a function of my academic environment, though. I’m fast, but bad for typos.
However, I am a pretty good cook. Not a fancy cook, not a go-up-to-Arthur-Avenue-to-get-fresh-mozzerella cook, but a good flavor fidgeter, adept at dependable, tasty vegetarian stuff and one-dish meals that you can stretch (thanks to years as a poor student), and a few dynamite-but-labor-intensive dishes for holidays and special occasions. And I’m an excellent baker. To me, fresh bread is possibly the best thing in the entire world, so I learned how to make that early, maybe around 6th grade or so. I like both cooking and baking, but in all cases, having to do either all the time kills the joy. But not the tastiness.
I am a huge touch-typing fan, in fact there is a fun and free typing test site: http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php That uses paragraphs from the classics.
So much fun! I do find touch typing to be a handicap for smart phones, though. I generally remember my passwords through muscle memory so consistently forget which letters are letters and which are symbols, numbers, misspelled, etc.
emilyanne: I am so jealous of your shorthand! I’ve always wanted to learn, that and the phonetic alphabet . . .
Bellacoker, the odd thing about my shorthand is its strictly speaking the wrong sort. All UK journalists (until recently about the last five-six years) had to pass t-line shorthand in order to work in newspapers but i did my training in the US where nowhere cared about shorthand – however because of the secretarial course I did pitman shorthand, which is the traditional secretarial shorthand. It caused great confusion in my first UK newspaper job where people kept going that’s not shorthand because the two styles are so different.
Great thread, everyone!
Can I go back to Baraqiel’s comment about sitting down to dinner without machinery? How many of you harpies who live with someone else in an intimate relationship do that? (That is, not all roommates would count here.) If not, why not?
This is something I was and am adamant about. When our kids were growing up, we had the news on during dinner and we would discuss it-until King George was “elected”. Then I was too angry to deal with it at dinner. But it was always a priority for me to have a time when everyone got to tell about their day. Sure, sometimes one or another of us needed more attention, but usually everyone said something. We would have missed so much good talk, laughter and important information if we hadn’t done that.
Somehow it happened that I am the one who finds recipes, makes sure we buy certain needed foods, chops most of the vegetables and keeps track of what’s next in the recipe while my partner is the one who’s at the stove actually cooking stuff. It works. Once in a while I want to make sure I’m competent in the kitchen so I cook a recipe myself. I love recipes because I hate cooking if the food’s going to be boring and not that great and I am not that creative in the kitchen. I don’t have the cooking instinct some people seem to have. Also, I grew up eating too many suppers of potatoes, a meat, and frozen vegetables so while my mom has taught me the basics, I’m teaching myself a lot.
I definitely want to teach my kids all I know so they don’t move out not knowing how to make a good supper.
MischiefManager – i have all my dinners and lunches at weekends without machinery. I grew up in a house where the TV was for after dinner if at all and where we all spent the entire time arguing about, er I mean discussing, the events of the day, what books we were reading, films were worth watching etc and whether or not Tottenham Hotspur were a useless soccer team. We were all expected to weigh in and do subsequently have a tendency to shout across each other at family get-togethers but i like it, the idea of tv meals etc or even the radio on was simply not allowed. Breakfast is the one exception as it is a time for reading newspapers so that we can bone up enough facts to pretend we know what we’re talking about at the evening freeforall.
@MischiefManager – We also usually eat dinner at the table with no TV (sometimes music if we’re played out and too tired to talk much), our baby in his highchair at the table with us. Our doctor, usually very laissez faire, was insistent that as soon as baby could sit in the highchair, he should eat meals with us at the table (his wife is the town’s pediatric nutritionist, and I trust them both). That made perfect sense to us. How else do kids learn manners and discussion than by being part of it, even long before they can talk?
However, once in a while we will all sit in front of the TV together and eat. But given the attention span of an 11-month-old, that usually doesn’t last long. Unless there are muppets.
Before we had the baby, though, we would spend more meals chilling out in front of the TV. But we talk all the time, so it’s not like we lack for discussion.
I had read somewhere quote from a 70’s “career woman”, no citation sorry, who said that the best thing she did for her career was NOT learning how to type …
A bit of a derail from the topic but touch typing was one of the few skills from high school that I used daily in my career (as a software engineer). It’s funny to see typing used as a negative example – it’s not just for “secretaries,” LOL!
Getting back to the topic, I thought all the male/female baggage surrounding cooking would be gone by now. It’s strange to see reports that people view cooking as anti-feminist. I’m 48 and no one that I hang out with sees cooking as a feminist issue other than as part of the much larger issue of the “second shift” that is placed on women (e.g., when both sides of a hetero couple work outside the home the woman does do more housework). So why the haters? Among my friends the ones who like to cook are distributed pretty randomly between men and women, singles and couples, etc.
Oh, one last point – my father was the one who was the better cook when I was growing up (homemade waffles – YUMM!).
On this issue, I am the worst feminist in the herstory of ever. Every kitchen I enter becomes MY kitchen. I can remember completely taking over at dinner parties my college friends would have — mostly because someone would have an idea, the ingredients, but neither the skills nor patience to pull it off. I became the chef of our group and everyone was happy, myself included, because labor often meant I didn’t have to throw down for ingredients or beer.
Now that I’m all grown up, food is one of the things that my bf and I can really count on in our relationship. Things have been tough between us recently, but despite whatever’s going on, he knows I’ve always got some delicious meal up my figurative sleeve. He says that we might as well call the kitchen my “other studio” because I create works of art there too. I don’t know what it is about food, but a good meal helps to maintain stability, and for me, cooking that meal means I have created stability. This mindset is especially helpful for me because when I was growing up, food was used by my father and step-mother to control me (and so I took control of myself by refusing food and restricting my diet to kosher foods, then vegetarianism, but that came after I began to overcome some of the meal-skipping etc).
I just love cooking. Even if I don’t have that much time I can throw something together and provide myself and my mate a little love and tenderness, even if we are mad at each other.