My husband and I have been together 20 years now (married 19 yrs this summer). The other night I asked him how he knew I loved him. A simple question, right?

His reply: “I know you love me because you make supper every night for our family, even though you hate it.”
WORD.

The one thing I loved about him when I first met him was his skills not only when it came to fixing vehicles for me, but cooking meals. When we first met, I lived on my own and ate grilled cheese sandwiches, Mr. Noodles and ate cereal on a regular basis. Going all out and actually making a meal meant eggs and bacon or re-heating something from frozen. I have never enjoyed cooking.

In fact, I hate it. I abhor it. Detest isn’t a strong enough word for how I feel about cooking. (Baking on the other hand…that’s a completely different story).

Pretty soon my husband is going to need to figure out another way of measuring my love for him, because this cook is about to quit, burn her apron, throw out the spatula and keep take-out menus on hand.

Once upon a time, when I worked out of the house, we used to take turns making meals. In fact, there was a time when he would get home first and he’d make the meals during the week and I’d take care of it on weekends (hello pizza and bbq’s). Shhh…but there were times I’d say I was ‘working late’ just so he would start dinner.

But now I work from home. I have an office where  you can find me 10-14 hrs a day at times, typing away on my wireless keyboard. Which means, cooking dinner is my job. Apparently. It doesn’t always happen and thankfully my kids are old enough that they want to start helping…which is a good thing, considering they will often compare my food with the way their father has made it, or their grandmother, or friend’s parent or… (you get the idea).

I can already hear people now…I should menu plan, get the kids involved more, do meals in the crockpot … and guess what, you’re all right. I should and do. Most of the time. When I think about it. But most of the time, that meal plan I created…the meat I was supposed to take out is still frozen, those ingredients I needed for that one dish, used for another and I have to run back out to the store at 3:00pm for ‘one more item’…bottom line, in the 20 years we have been together, NOTHING I have tried to do to make this one chore easier has helped.

For one simple reason. I hate cooking dinner. We will watch Master Chef or any other cooking show on the Food Network and my youngest says she wants to be on one of those shows. All the power to her! The idea of me being one of those contestants…instant panic attack. Gordon Ramsey would probably spit out my food. Graham, sweet and kind Graham would find himself at a loss and Joe…well, it’s a good thing he’s not on the show anymore (if ever I was crazy enough to enter).

Martha Stewart, I am not.

One day we’ll have someone to make the meals for us. One day there will be someone to take the burden of feeding my family off my shoulders completely and all I need to do is sit back and savor each bite I eat. (why am I picturing Hannibal Lector right now eating a liver…)

That one day might be when we’re living in a retirmement home and we are getting spoon fed…but hey, it will happen. One day.

ps. If you ever find a character in my stories that LOVES to cook…I was probably sick and on mediation that made me loopy while writing that scene.

PSST…please tell me I’m not the only one who feels this way? I’m not alone in this, right?