Cooking Curse

It is a well known fact that my mother-in-law does not cook. She reheats via oven or microwave and occasionally boils potatoes, and back in the day, apparently, she baked a pan or two of shortbread. Christmas dinner at her house was a series of ready-made starters, precooked turkey breast and pre-roasted potatoes, finished off with ice cream and fresh raspberries.

I am not sure how I feel about her lack of culinary interest. At first I really loved it because I think I may have lost it long ago if I had married a ‘that’s-not-how-my-mother-used-to-make-it’ type. But no, I have the opposite problem… My husband is so excited that he now gets served edible food at home that he never has the desire to eat a meal any where else. Once I started cooking for him, it was like he discovered food for the first time after years of starvation. (Okay, a bit extreme perhaps, but the man hoovers anything I make him with the greed of my father’s black Labrador.)

Anytime I start thinking a bowl of cereal would do me for dinner, I come home to discover that my sweet husband has been bragging about my cooking and am guilt tripped (by myself) into making yet another brag-worthy meal. If I pick up something pre-made off the shelves, my husband’s heart visibly sinks.

Don’t misunderstand me- I genuinely love cooking, especially for my wonderful husband. I love feeding some who so clearly appreciates each and every bite (I have yet to see a dinner plate he hasn’t cleared completely! I baked him cinnamon rolls for his birthday in Sept and he hasn’t stopped talking about them since.). My complaint isn’t that I have to cook- my complaint is that I have to figure out what to cook!

After eight months of marriage, cooking 5-6 nights a week, I am out of ideas! My husband may be perfectly happy with whatever I cook, but if I have to eat another meal of mushroom & chicken pasta, I think I might cry. Now all I can do is pray for spark of culinary creativity. In the meantime, I’ve been walking to work and back to save my bus fare so I can buy up any cooking magazines I find…