Fridge Wanderings
There are two of us in the house. We both work from home most days.
My husband doesn’t cook. I made my peace with that years ago—some days are more peaceful than others, but I’ve accepted it.
He can make coffee. He perfected a very complicated process for hand-grinding the beans, measuring them into a filter-topped tube, steeping them to a precise four minutes, and then tipping the contraption into a cup. Ninety percent of the time, this works. Ten percent of the time, coffee grounds and hot water end up on the counter and floor. But my point is, if he can spend 10 minutes in the morning brewing coffee, he has the potential to master basic cooking techniques.
And yet...he’s resisted every effort I make.
I leave a variety of fruits, veg, cooked proteins, nuts, cheese, and breads in the fridge so he could toss together a salad, sandwich, or wrap.
Most evenings when I cook, I make extra so he can have leftovers.
The freezer is crammed with falafel, pita, dumplings, and prepped stir fry veg.
Then, when lunchtime rolls around…he opens the fridge…stares inside for a few minutes…doesn’t see anything…grabs a handful of grapes or peanuts, walks around munching, and asks if I’m going to make something for myself.
I hear this as, “Could you please make me some lunch?”
I’ve tried everything, portioning out leftovers into individual containers that he can reheat. Talking him through what is available to put in a sandwich. Ignoring his fridge-to-desk-desk-to-fridge wanderings.
This is not new; it’s been happening for 30 years. But lately, it is bugging me more and more.
I’m not sure if it’s that with our kids gone, I’m more inclined not to do things for anyone except myself. Or, if it’s menopause—I recently read that estrogen acts a filter for your brain; without it, you become frustrated more quickly.
Whatever it is, I need to figure out how to get the man to feed himself something more than peanuts and grapes.
And before you think, “why can’t you just ignore it?” I should explain, I’m a “Feeder.” It’s what I do. I show love through food. I think about food all the time. My discussions with my kids revolve around “what did you eat?” and “what are you going to eat?” My 24-year-old son and I have religiously watched a YouTube cooking channel for years—he’s a fantastic cook, by the way. I plan trips based on food tours and restaurants I want to try. In another life my perfect job would have been Recipe Developer for Epicurious. So no, I cannot ignore anyone in my vicinity who may be slightly hungry.
It's my own fault. I’ve enabled this ridiculous behaviour for years allowing our relationship to become stuck in a 1950s time warp, where the woman cooks and the man sits down at the table expecting food to be put in front of him.
For years I joked to some good friends that my husband couldn’t even make toast. They thought I was exaggerating. Then, we took a cooking class while on holiday together. The teacher plopped a bunch of carrots and some garlic in front of my husband and said, “dice the carrots and mince the garlic.” He looked at the raw produce as if it were alien lifeforms. Picked up the peeler and said, “How do I use this to mince?” Our friends were stunned. They thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I felt vindicated.
He wasn’t even embarrassed. His reaction: “I’m going to play to my strengths. I’ll be back with beer to go with whatever you three make.” Then he unapologetically left the class. He did return with beer, so there is that.
During the pandemic I was stuck in the US for a month. He was in Singapore alone. I arranged for a chef friend of mine to drop off weekly pre-packaged meals. He called her and asked what she meant by the instructions: “preheat the oven.” After that she left him salads or things that he could microwave.
So, here’s my dilemma. Do I try to teach an old husband a new trick? Do I suck it up and just make him lunch? Or do I somehow go against every fibre of my being and ignore his desk-to-fridge wanderings?
Now that I think about it. It’s more of a “me” problem than a “him” problem. He’d be fine with grapes and peanuts for lunch. So maybe I’m the one who needs to learn some new tricks.
Click to make the Simple Spicy Peanut Noodles pictured above.