The Wifening

What? It can be a word if I want it to be one...

Welcome to my little experiment. I realized one night after making dinner for J (stuffed peppers – YUM!) and being overly proud of myself that it was the first time I had ever made a real dinner for the poor guy! In just over 8 years of marriage... Ooops.

I mean, I had made things that I wanted before and just happened to make enough for him... The problem is that I tend to want to eat like a 5 year old a lot and that’s not his cuppa tea. Like when I made him tamale casserole – a dish that I grew up on and love to this day. He took about two bites and then made himself something else if I remember correctly - I know he did NOT like it. Or when I made him crescent dogs! What a delicious night that was!

**To my credit, I had tried to make him my mom’s lasagna once, but he kept taking over, so I abandoned the kitchen and played games on my Nintendo DS on the couch while he made dinner. And I have since made lasagna without him home, so he COULDN’T take over. AND I do all the laundry... So there’s that...**

I don’t know what it is... I just don’t have the “wife” gene. It must have skipped me somehow. I hate cooking. I REALLY hate cleaning... I think part of me feels like – “I’m at work all day, then I go to the gym after work, and the last thing I want to do when I get home is cook dinner! If we want a housewife in this house, I’m gonna have to start doin’ a whole lot less of this ‘goin’ to work’ nonsense.” Which is unfair of me. I know this... He works too – farther from home and longer hours to be quite honest, but still... He actually LIKES to cook. And is really good at it!

He makes BEAUTIFUL dinners! Out of things that seem completely random to me. He just knows what will taste good together just BECAUSE. He does kitchen sorcery like “cracking an egg open with one hand” or “flipping things in a pan instead of stirring”.... Things that would leave me with a handful of crushed egg or a wall covered in food... And he always has everything finished cooking at the same time – and everything is perfectly timed and wonderful. I try to think of doing that and snort-laugh. A lot.

I can’t look in the fridge and go, “Hey, there’s a pork tenderloin. I’m gonna make.......” Because that’s literally where my brain shuts off. Seriously... I couldn’t even make up an example to use here! My brain had a panic attack and ran away to look at recipes for cupcakes and cookies.

Because that’s what I enjoy. I love baking. I could make some sort of bread, cookie, cake, cupcake, sweet... every day of the week. I have recipes that I know by heart because they are my standards. A thing that is definitely NOT true about COOKING. I don’t know any recipe by heart and I certainly don’t have anything that would just pop into my head to create!

I WANT to be a better cook... Kind of... Ok, not really... But I feel like I SHOULD want to be a better cook... Because grown-ups know how to make something for dinner other than a tuna sandwich... So I’m determined to change some things around my house.

I will arm myself with a stock of recipes that I feel fairly confident I would be able to make and I will start trying to cook dinner. And I will try to be better about straightening up... And maybe vacuuming more than biannually (seriously not that much of an exaggeration). I’m not putting any kind of “numbers” or “times” on this – not for real real. I’ll just say.....

I am going to cook dinner one night next week!

GULP!

I will pick something that seems easy enough to make and I WILL make it! I will pick it before our weekly shopping trip so that I can buy whatever I need to make it and can’t make excuses about not having the ingredients! I will not curl up in the corner at the thought of touching raw chicken! The meal will be well-rounded and include protein, veggies, and a carb of some sort!

And if it comes out dry and disgusting, I will try again next week!

I’ll let ya know how it goes... J may decide that he doesn't REALLY wish I could cook like he thinks he does and will resume all cooking duties... We'll see. Maybe I'm gonna be a naturally awesome chef - I just haven't made an honest enough attempt at recognizing my full potential yet.... 

Yeah.. See? There's that snort-laugh again......