There are so many stereotypes regarding women that we have proven wrong over the years. We aren’t all bad drivers, we don’t clean the house in heels, we can lift weights at the gym, and not all of us would make a good top chef. After burning grilled cheese countless times and even screwing up mac and cheese, with practice maybe it’s possible I could become a good cook. But I don’t even like trying for 5 simple reasons:
1. I have a job
As do many men. This is why takeout and fast food has become such a lucrative business in this day and age. Modern society tells everyone to work but we still have to eat. I don’t like working all day just to come home to do more work. Between prepping ingredients and preheating surfaces, you are waiting another hour to eat and to relax.
2. I work so hard on the meal, then it’s gone
We just established, cooking is work. The steps to make a meal go something like this: spend time at a store shopping for ingredients, spend time washing and cutting and measuring those ingredients, waiting for the stove/oven to preheat, reading directions and carefully combining the steps of a recipe, and then you just swallow it. All that and it gets eaten in like 10 minutes. My post-work work and time goes straight in my belly like it never even happened.
3. It gets hot in the kitchen
Most meals require heating things up in the kitchen. That means that the entire apartment gets hot, which is not fun for me or anyone else involved. In the summer, I remember my parent’s avoiding cooking by making tuna salad or some other cold meal. Those meals are just as good as hot dishes but they just don’t satisfy in the same way. After one or two nights of a big salad, I want some hot gooey carbs and I know I’m not alone in that.
4. If it comes out badly, I wasted time and money
So the scene is set. I worked all day, I went grocery shopping, I got sweaty while measuring random spices, and now it’s on a plate ready to be scarfed down. I take a bite and know that somewhere along the line, I messed up. No food is supposed to taste so much like sewage but I managed to make it that way. Yes, practice makes perfect, but is food meant to be lumped into that saying? I’m just supposed to keep buying products, putting them together over the course of an hour, and hope it tastes yummy? Sounds risky.
5. I have no imagination
This is the case when it comes to storytelling too; I am a literal person. I don’t think outside of the box too well so my meal ideas range from adding different things in a salad to using a different sauce on spaghetti noodles to putting a different type of protein next to rice. What else is there to use for a basis of a meal if it’s not pasta or rice? Salads or soups can be a side or eaten in mass quantity to satisfy, but what else is there?
For the amount of time I lose cooking, I would rather order on my way home and pick it up and have it ready to enjoy. That way, there is almost a 100% guarantee that it won’t taste gross and I can relax while eating it because none of the dishes used to make it are in my sink waiting to be washed. And I didn’t buy 4 obscure ingredients for this one recipe that I will never use again. Everyone is happy!
Featured image via gbarkz on Unsplash
For the amount of time I lose cooking, I would rather order on my way home and pick it up and have it ready to enjoy. That way, there is almost a 100% guarantee that it won’t taste gross and I can relax while eating it because none of the dishes used to make it are in my sink waiting to be washed. And I didn’t buy 4 obscure ingredients for this one recipe that I will never use again. Everyone is happy!