Oh, the irony…
Hi, my name is Rachel and I’m a nutrition coach who hates to cook.
There, I said it out loud!
You know how you hear people talking about how much they enjoy cooking and how relaxing they find it? Well, I’m the polar opposite and find it nothing but stressful.
Don’t get me wrong, I can cook, I just really really really don’t like to.
For the first 16 years of my marriage (and 15 years of parenthood) I cooked every evening for the family. Every day the same struggle to come up with a meal that wouldn’t reduce me to tears in the making, and the family to tears in the eating. Amazingly there were only a few meals they wouldn’t eat, and a couple that were even enjoyed, but it was very hit and miss along the way.
One positive that came out of the pandemic for me was my husband, Felix, being sent into home office and taking over the cooking. Nearly 4 years later he’s still mostly in home office and I’m still thanking my lucky stars every day that he still does the cooking, with our eldest now taking over chef duties 3 evenings a week. I know, how lucky am I?
That said, it was like a dagger to the heart (dramatic? Moi?) recently when Felix was away and I was cooking, our youngest wondered into the kitchen and expressed her surprise that I was cooking, something along the lines of ‘I’ve never seen you cooking before’. Erm… what about the first 12 years of your life when I cooked for you every day?!?
To add to my struggles I don’t have the particular gene that means I can look at a collection of ingredients and think, ‘right, I know what I’ll make’ and then happily potter around the kitchen making it up as I go along. Oh no, I’ll stand in the kitchen looking at shelves full of food and quite simply have no clue how to put any of them together with silent tears of stress and fear rolling down my cheeks.
A classic example of this was way back when I first moved to Germany. On the weekends I’d go and spend €5 on a selection of random ingredients for Felix to then create a meal with for the two of us. One evening we sat down to eat and I was absolutely thrilled that he’d made Caprese Salad (one of my favourites). Felix was utterly bemused and responded with ‘you brought tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. What did you think I was going to make with them?’
I can honestly say it never crossed my mind that Caprese Salad was an option.
Another mystery to me is recipe books. Felix loves to flick through his recipe book collection, he finds them inspiring, he gets ideas on how to adapt recipes, come up with new ideas. What kind of sorcery is that?
Recipe books fill me with fear. How can one meal need so many ingredients, most of which can’t be pronounced, let alone found in your average grocery store? How is any of that fun?
All I can say is Google is my friend. To be able to type in ‘what can I make with an egg, a pineapple and a piece of celery’ or ‘vegetarian meal with 5 ingredients or less’ is life-changing for someone like me!
Oh, and another thing. How do people just intuitively know how to substitute one ingredient for another when they’re following a recipe and find they don’t have all the right bits and pieces? Some other kind of sorcery, obviously.
Do you remember in art classes in school when you mixed too many paint colours together and it would turn a nasty sludgy brown colour that no-one would want to use? Well, that’s what happens to my food when I try and switch out too many ingredients from a recipe. No-one wants to eat it!
I’m guessing I’m not the only person out there who does not love and adore the act of cooking. If you’re one of those, I’d love to hear your tips on how you adapt and survive.
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