Today we welcome Kirsty from My Home Truths to the Cartel. Kirsty ain’t much chop in the kitchen, but she’s got some cunning tricks to get out of cooking – so she’s my new favourite person.
Take it away, Kirsty.
I’ll be honest, I’m not at all interested in anything culinary. Except for a fleeting interest each year in My Kitchen Rules. But to be honest, that’s more about the personal interaction between the contestants than the cooking itself. That’s what the show is really all about, anyway, isn’t it?
I’ve never felt any burning desire to make myself home in the kitchen. I don’t remember learning to cook at all when I was young. I have vivid memories of my mother bustling about in our brown veneer and orange laminate kitchen but I never expressed any desire to join her there.
I only ever learned to cook the basics for when I belatedly moved out of home at 22. I remember being able to cook a mean stir-fry based on Maggi 2 minute noodles and a splash of oyster sauce – and that was about the pinnacle of my culinary skill back then!
Since then I have expanded my repertoire to incorporate oven baked numbers such as pies, fish and chips. I have also mastered the microwave and can pump out macaroni cheese and tinned spaghetti with the best of them. The kettle is also my friend – you see, I still haven’t quite given up on my early fascination with 2 minute noodles.
I can make packet mix cakes and cook a baked chicken (with vegies too – yay, I’m gourmet!) but honestly that’s where my very meagre talents end. I’m actually really clueless in the kitchen and, I’m ashamed to admit it, I’m not that interested or motivated to change that anytime soon.
I’d rather do anything else than decide on a meal and cook it every night – I really would.
So here are my tips, collected through a lifetime of learning, on how to avoid regular cooking duty:
- Find someone better at cooking than you. I was lucky enough to marry a man who is a natural in the kitchen – someone who can whip up anything from any old ingredients. He’s the sort of guy who would excel in an amateur version of Ready, Steady Cook – a perfect foil for me and my non-culinariness. (That is totally a word!)
- Offer to do the cleaning up afterwards. I have fallen into the routine where I will always clean up and fill the washing machine each night which is a good way to get out of cooking Fair division of labour and all that. I would rather slave away with a sink-load of dishes than have to come up with an idea for dinner, plus having to cook it, every night.
- Emphasise your incompetence. I believe our respective natural roles in the kitchen are reinforced on those nights I do have to take the lead in the kitchen. My husband is forcibly reminded of my lack of skills which just gives him more reason to take back the reins as soon as possible!
- Conveniently forget to get something out for dinner. There’s nothing worse than forgetting to get the meat out of the freezer for dinner. Or, getting it out but forgetting about it so it becomes a little too thawed. Oops. In these cases, don’t despair, you can then make the mutual decision to go out for dinner or order takeaway instead. Boom, dinner duty avoided.
- Employ a well-timed distraction. Tonight, I was starting dinner when I accidentally dropped a glass tumbler, shattering glass all over the floor. After we both cleaned up the debris (I swept, he vacuumed) natural order was restored and he got on with making dinner while I looked on (in between looking at Christmas catalogues). Trust me, it works!
Now you know my secrets, hit me with yours. What lengths would you go to in order to get out of dinner duty?
Hi, I’m Kirsty from My Home Truths
I’m a mother of 3, wife of a big kid, worker, carer and blogger. I always have way too much on my plate but I am learning to juggle with the best of them. I use my blog to vent, laugh at myself, raise awareness of autism and albinism and to pretty much just crap on. Because in the end it’s all about me – my life, my stories, my truths.
I usually wait for the Dinner Fairy but she never shows up! RUDE. I’m actually a reasonable cook, not great but alright so not sure why I dread it so much. I think it’s trying to please fussy children and having a tiny kitchen and all the mess and washing up involved that puts me off. I will definitely be trying those tips. Thanks!
Oh, I remember that stiry fry! I’m pretty sure we all went through a phase in our early 20s where we thought that was sophisticated cuisine.
I am a bit of a control – well, I don’t want to say ‘freak’ because that implies that wanting control is unnatural and weird. Let’s say ‘control goddess’. But I don’t like to let my husband cook because, seriously, when he cooks, he uses EVERY SINGLE ITEM in the kitchen. Why do you need the jaffle iron, masher and sixteen spoons to make spaghetti?? So then if he cooks, I have to clean up. And I don’t like that. When I cook, I clean as I go and everything is under control.
That, and he only knows how to cook two meals (three if you consider guacamole a meal – which, you know, sometimes it is, especially when served with beer).
Guacamole is totally a meal, especially if corn chips are involved – I have a big weakness for corn chips!!!
I’m fairly sure this is exactly what my husband does to avoid cooking, except he doesn’t do washing up unless I ask. Cooking sucks, especially with kids who say YUK to everything!
I organise ‘Pizza in the park’ with the families at school – we have three schools so it’s three different nights we socialise, and get out of cooking…yay!
I like that idea Lydia – I may have to copy that one!