What's For Dinner?

A lot of people have had to make a lot of changes to their lives because of the current pandemic, and most people are spending a lot more time at home. I'm fortunate in that I've been able to work from home, so that's one adjustment that's been relatively easy to manage. One of the major changes that have come out of being home pretty much all of the time is that I'm doing much more cooking than I used to. Because of the hours I was keeping at work, as well as the commute time that was terrible, as is common in the Los Angeles area, I wouldn't get home until much later in the evening, so for the most part, the husband and I handled our meals on our own, except for weekends. And even then, cooking has never been my thing. It's no secret that I'm fond of food and am interested in food-related subjects, but I don't generally find the pleasure in cooking that a lot of other people do. Well, I like watching it, but I'm not as interested in doing it. Other people are much better at it, so why not take advantage of that.

Because I have more time now, I generally do some sort of cooking maybe twice a week. On other days, we might do take-out or leftovers or simpler things from the pantry or refrigerator. My form of cooking is currently very simple and mostly consists of Chinese cuisine. I'll admit that I never really learned to cook, which is why I can only do fairly simple things. I was never taught to cook as a child. Being the youngest of five kids, I was tasked with the simple jobs, which usually consisted of washing things. As I got older, I would sometimes be allowed to prep or cut certain vegetables but really only if it was easy. When it came to actual cooking, I was rarely given the chance. Occasionally, I would get to stir something, but otherwise, my parents were too impatient to actually teach me or let me do stuff because it would take too long to explain it. Even when I'd ask, they might let me do it for a little while, but in explaining what kind of seasoning to add or how long to cook something at any particular stage in the process, they would usually get tired of explaining and waiting and just take over. End of lesson. The stuff I taught myself to cook when I lived on my own were pretty simple, and there's not much incentive to learn to cook more when you're just cooking for one. And, as I mentioned, cooking really isn't my thing, so there wasn't much of a drive to teach myself more.

My mother would often lament my lack of ability to cook. How was I going to catch a husband if I couldn't cook for him? Because that's apparently all I'm good for. Because a grown man isn't expected to be able to feed himself, but it's my responsibility to make sure he's fed? And, if it really was so vital for me to be able to cook in order to snag a husband, wouldn't you think it would be fairly important for my parents to teach me that essential skill? Yeah, there was never an answer when I would bring that up. It was my fault that I didn't know how to cook because no one taught me.

So when I cook now, some of it is experimenting with regard to what things go well together, how long to cook things, seasonings, and the like. The husband happens to like Chinese cooking, but some of the things I've made for him are things he's not really familiar with, so my advantage is that he doesn't know how the dish is *supposed* to turn out. He doesn't know if I made it "wrong" - he can only go by what the finished product looks and tastes like. He's not particularly forthcoming with his feedback, so I have to ask specific questions to find out what he likes and what he doesn't. If there's something he isn't fond of, I either don't use that ingredient the next time or I use less of it. I know there are certain things and tastes that he does like, so I can take that into account. Occasionally, I'll make something because I want it, even if it's not something he's keen on. Those nights, he figures out dinner on his own, and he's fine with that.

I'm looking at recipes and things to try to branch out into non-Chinese cuisine, partly because it gets repetitive cooking and eating the same things when you're having every meal at home. For those things, the husband will obviously have more familiarity with how they're supposed to be made, but he seems pretty flexible.