Chaos Cooking

Right off the top, I want to say that I love my darling wife unreservedly and that we work exceptionally well together. Most of the time.

We have put up wallpaper, painted rooms, fixed cars and built furniture. We have raised three kids who know how to tie their shoes and string a coherent sentence together.  Most of the time.

We mesh together like a Swiss timepiece, or like a perfect musical performance, or like a flaming, knife-throwing, blindfolded, acrobatic circus act. Until we get into the kitchen. Then the flaming knives end up in the seats…

I learned to bake and cook mostly from my Mom, who is an exceptional cook to this day. The best part of learning from her was I didn't have to do much of the prep work. Mom would have everything ready to go and we'd create cookies and then I would have to clean up. It was less painful because I got to lick the bowl and the beaters.

I also had the advantage (?) of having mandatory Home Economics class in my Junior High School. They were very forward thinking back then. I think the School Board realized all the boys of my generation would starve to death if we didn't get as much training as possible.

My Home Economics teacher was a marvel. Shorter than most of the students, she still ran the Home Ec room with military precision. She could snap a towel or wield a wooden spoon like nobody I know. All the ingredients were out on the counter and verified correct before work began. Then, as each ingredient was used, the remainder was put aside in a safe place or back in the pantry or disposed of as carefully as the biohazard it sometimes was.

Even the clean up was followed to the letter. There was no way in the world you escaped until the teacher checked that everything was put in its proper place and the counters and the sinks were sparkling. There were many days some of us had to stay after school to finish the clean up. That's what I hear, anyway…

So that's how I learned to work in a kitchen and those lessons have stuck to this day. Now, for my darling, lovely, exceptional wife, well, I'm not sure where she learned to work in the kitchen. I know that her Mom regularly had flour, sauces and other bits of food stuck on the ceiling. Never quite sure how it happened, but it did lend an exotic flair to the décor.

My wife will put everything she needs for cooking out onto the counter like I do, but there the resemblance ends. She'll leave all the ingredients on the counter, just in case she needs a little more. All the mixing bowls and every utensil we have will be out and stacked on every flat surface, even if they haven't been used. It'll look like a bomb went off on the counter when she's done. To be fair (and to keep me out of the doghouse)(maybe), my wife will have made three meals, compared to my one.

When we try to work together to prepare a meal, the chaos rises to new heights. My darling gets everything on the stove at the same time and starts the burners when needed. I'm a big believer of doing things in sequence, making one part of the meal then moving on to the next part, and so on. It works most of the time, unless I forget to turn on the burner, or even put the vegetables in the pot. Aren't vegetables what the food eats anyway?

I'll move right and she'll move left and we'll collide in the middle. I generally love colliding with her. Not so much when she has a knife or a scalding pan in her hand.

So we've come to an agreement. If one of us is cooking, the other will be bugging our kids, painting the ceiling or be otherwise occupied anywhere but in the kitchen.

It's really for the best. Like they say, "Happy Wife, Happy Life!"