I love cooking. There I said it. I love cooking for my husband, my friends and my family. I am happy and comfortable to admit that their is nothing more gratifying in this world than seeing my husband's reaction to a well thought of dinner spread in the middle of the week; a 4 course gourmet dinner that starts with delectable nibbles and ends with a thick slab of cake (admittedly, the cake is store-bought...I said cooking, not baking). More so, I feel like a super woman, having conquered an unconquerable feat everytime my husband finishes eating and looks at me straight in the eye and says "I am the luckiest husband alive".
The reason I write about this is because these days, I felt like cooking, for the most part, has somewhat lost its appeal to women. It has become some sort of an aberration, a throwback to the old days, back when women can't vote and women and kids are only seen and not heard. With all this bruhaha about women's lib and such and the proliferation of restaurants, it has become almost extinct. Not to mention everyone's lack of time to actually prepare and sit down for a proper meal. Why cook when you can order take out? Why spend half a day cooking
for a party when you can cater? Why buy all those kitchen tools when you can have them prepared and cooked for you?
My thoughts on cooking are these:
1. It is never an extravagance or a frivolity to cook for your loved ones. Knowing what nutritional value and the quality of food that my husband eats is of foremost importance to me and I will not compromise that
2. When I cook, I get in the zone... Almost Zen like, where every ingredient in the recipe has a purpose and I can create a meal that is in perfect harmony with the world. The spices mingle with the meat, the rice softens to mix with the sauce and the potatoes surrender to the taste of the chicken broth. I become the creator of something that will be enjoyed later on and for me, that is something. A sense of accomplishment.
What I want to emphasize here dear readers, is that cooking is not surrendering to slavery or purporting domesticity. That is a different story. I hate cleaning up after a meal. That is something my husband has to do. Thankfully after each meal, there is really no room for him to complain after eating like a king.
