Text 9802, 68 rader
Skriven 2005-04-08 16:52:03 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
   Kommentar till text 9801 av Björn Felten (2:203/2)
Ärende: Cooking
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Hello Björn,

 MvdV>> If I ever get the chance to redo my life, I will learn to cook as
 MvdV>> soon as I get the chance and not wait until I have too.....

 >    I have similar regrets. I wish it shouldn't have taken 15
 > years of marriage before I discovered how much I love to cook
 > -- and how much Anita used to hate it.

Up until my second wife died some nine yeras ago now, it was always the women
in my life that did the cooking. My wife didn't like to cook every much either.
She loved to cook for "occasions" and her Indonesian dishes were really
fabulous, but she hated the day to day obligation to produce a meal. I could do
an emergency meal and when she was sick I did, but that was about all.

It wasn't until after I became a widower that I seriously delved into the
intricacies of producing a decent meal. I simply got tired of fried eggs and TV
dinners and I found the alternative: being the lonely guy in a restaurant or
fast food shop even more depressing...

So at age 50+ I finally learned myself to cook. And I found I liked it. I will
never be a chef in a three star restaurant, but I can produce a decent meal and
produce a different meal every day over a three week period...

 > So now I've spent the last 15 years trying to make up to her,

Unfortunately it is too late for that in my case.

 >    One interesting (and quite natural), effect from me doing
 > most of the cooking is that, now that Anita no longer *has* to
 > cook every day, we've discovered that she really loves taking
 > an occasional turn in the kitchen, when she gets inspired by
 > something -- on TV, in a newspaper or maybe even something
 > I've cooked that she thinks she could have done better (and,
 > often enough, really does).

Rosa has not reached that stage yet. She only cooks when I am incapacitated....
;-)

 MvdV>> but as a cook she is worthles..

 >    I know it's politically incorrect to say so, but it's my
 > firm belief, that natural science and engineering actually
 > *do* come more natural to boys than to girls -- at least on
 > average.

I may be politically incorrect indeed, but it is my experience too that it is
true. And Rosa confirms it.. ;-)

 > And good cooking is almost entirely nothing but
 > natural science and engineering. That's, at least, *my* theory
 > about why almost all of the best chefs in the world are men.

I partly agree and partly disagree. While I agree that cooking is 90%
engineering, there is also an element of intuition and feeling involved in it.
If only for the fact that for a real engineer, most of the recipes are
completely incomprehensible if you have never cooked.

I guess I got the intuition part from my grandmother. (from my fathers side).
My grandparents had a hotel and /she/ was the chief cook in the hotel's
restaurant. The hotel was destroyed in WWII during the battle of Arnhem. (A
bridge too far.)


Cheers, Michiel

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 * Origin: PA0MMV, Driebergen, NL (2:280/5555)