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Both spouses knowing how to cook is highly preferable to only one, this doesn't just apply to women or young women
My girlfriend isn't a terrible cook, but she's very frustrating at times. She doesn't have a very good ability to envision which things go together. She gets these ridiculous recipes off of Pinterest and I can tell within about 3 seconds that they're awful recipes and I tell her that, but she insists on making them anyway. Like a dish with cod, corn, cinnamon, curry powder, rice, and apple cider and other stuff. The recipe made no sense at all. She made it anyway, it was terrible and inedible as expected. This sense can improve to some degree but I'm not sure how much.
She also insists on following every recipe to the letter and measuring everything out which drives me nuts. No serious cook measures out 1 tbs of black pepper, that's just silly.
She'll have me try something and I'll tell her it needs more salt and she'll say "I put in a tsp that's what the recipe said." I tell her who cares what the recipe says, it needs more salt, you have to taste and season. Recipes are not gospel handed down from God. They're just estimations, often bad estimations, and you're never using the exact same ingredients as they are. My apples might have higher sugar content and lower acid than another person's apples. My can of tomatoes might have twice as much sodium as the one used in the recipe. My sea salt has a different amount of sodium by volume than another person's coarse Kosher salt. On so on and so forth.
It's a constant struggle to try to get her to use her senses of sight, smell, taste, and touch when she cooks, and to get her to develop her intuition. You can never become a good cook if you don't learn to use your senses and develop a feel for things.
She looks at dates on everything to try to tell if something is still good. I tell her to look at it and smell it, the milk doesn't magically go bad at the stroke of midnight on the use-by date. The pizza does not magically reach it's optimal level of doneness. You can't tell if an apple has gone bad by looking at a chart on the internet.
At least she's willing to try and she's not a picky eater. I try not to be too hard on her for fear of discouraging her. I just wish she would listen more. She's young though, it's a work in progress.
I think it would work better if you found something to do to keep you busy if she is cooking and then
rave like crazy over whatever she makes..if it's that bad she herself will say so ....
I have dumped recipes in the trash & ordered pizza more than once...
When I was learning to cook I needed "no pressure" time to learn..I made lots of bad recipes, but now I can usually spot a good recipe & I am a pretty decent cook..
Yes, it takes time, repetitions, and failures to realize not only which flavors go well together (and being able to toss recipes just by looking at them and knowing how they will turn out) but which flavors YOU ENJOY going together.
There was this rave review recipe for pork and apples and sauerkraut. I like apples. I like sauerkraut. The reviewers kept giving it 5 stars. So I did it.
Well, my wife liked it fine, but I found the dish to be flat, odd-tasting, and just...I dunno...like something a crappy cafeteria would serve?
I know now that no matter how brilliantly I prepare ratatouille (and how much other people rave over my recipe and cooking), I HATE IT. I hate the flavor profile, I hate the herbs used, I simply cannot choke the food down.
Lessons like this over time enable a person to just look a recipe and decide pretty accurately if it's going to be worth making or not. Or how it will taste. Give your girlfriend time to make mistakes and experiment.
She also insists on following every recipe to the letter and measuring everything out which drives me nuts. No serious cook measures out 1 tbs of black pepper, that's just silly.
If she's just learning to cook, and cannot tell that cod and cinnamon don't go together in a recipe, do you REALLY want her to estimate how much pepper should go into something? You're confusing "serious cook" with "highly experienced, intuitive cook."
I think it would work better if you found something to do to keep you busy if she is cooking and then
rave like crazy over whatever she makes..if it's that bad she herself will say so ....
I have dumped recipes in the trash & ordered pizza more than once...
When I was learning to cook I needed "no pressure" time to learn..I made lots of bad recipes, but now I can usually spot a good recipe & I am a pretty decent cook..
I do let her go it alone a lot of the time, or with minimal guidance, but she is always asking for help or advice. I try to teach her a little at a time so as not to overload her or be overbearing. It would probably be more discouraging if I went completely hands off because she would make a lot more mistakes and get a lot more frustrated.
I'm not going to lie to her if something is bad though. If it's good, I tell her. If it's not good, I tell her, but I try to be constructive and encouraging, never mean. I don't spit it into a napkin and then launch a tirade like I'm Gordon Ramsey. She knows that I'm my own biggest critic, I critique my food much harder than hers.
She enjoys cooking and likes doing it to give me a break from it, since we eat almost every meal at home. She's cooking more and more all the time and picking up things. There are some things that are her specialties now that she makes fairly often and that she knows I like. As opposed to her last BF who had a culinary degree who never tried to teach her anything, he just expected her to do the dishes. She likes her current situation a lot better.
If she's just learning to cook, and cannot tell that cod and cinnamon don't go together in a recipe, do you REALLY want her to estimate how much pepper should go into something? You're confusing "serious cook" with "highly experienced, intuitive cook."
You have to take the training wheels off sometime. Yes, I expect her to estimate how much pepper goes into something. That's basic tasting and seasoning. If she makes a mistake and puts a little too much pepper into something that's fine. She'll know for next time.
You have to take the training wheels off sometime. Yes, I expect her to estimate how much pepper goes into something. That's basic tasting and seasoning. If she makes a mistake and puts a little too much pepper into something that's fine. She'll know for next time.
I expect ???
I am sorry, but you sound like you are training her like an employee..
My husband can't cook and has no interest in learning. Then again, he also doesn't have a huge interest in eating and isn't a foodie, which I'm sure is a large part of the reason for his lack of desire to learn even basic cooking skills. At age 55, he is still the same 6'4" and 160 lbs. he was when he was 18. In fact, he can still fit into his original Navy uniform from when he was 18. The man only eats for sustenance and stops when he's full.
When he is hungry he can just as soon take a few handfuls of Fritos to fill him up, as eat a well-prepared steak. (He also wouldn't know the difference between a chuck steak and a ribeye steak, nor would he care, and doesn't give a hoot about nutrition.) If I make dinner, he eats it. If I don't fix dinner, he'll fend for himself - the same as when he was single. That means either picking up fast food or nuking a frozen dinner at home, making a simple sandwich, picking at the previously mentioned chips, or skipping dinner all together because he wasn't hungry enough to go through even that much trouble.
It's pointless for me to encourage someone who has zero interest in food. The bright side is he isn't fussy and will eat most things I put down in front of him. (The few things he won't eat, I simply don't make for him.) Therefore, I cook pretty much whatever I want.
Fortunately, he has interests in a lot of other things which we both share. Food just isn't one of them.
My husband can't cook and has no interest in learning. Then again, he also doesn't have a huge interest in eating and isn't a foodie, which I'm sure is a large part of the reason for his lack of desire to learn even basic cooking skills. At age 55, he is still the same 6'4" and 160 lbs. he was when he was 18. In fact, he can still fit into his original Navy uniform from when he was 18. The man only eats for sustenance and stops when he's full.
When he is hungry he can just as soon take a few handfuls of Fritos to fill him up, as eat a well-prepared steak. (He also wouldn't know the difference between a chuck steak and a ribeye steak, nor would he care, and doesn't give a hoot about nutrition.) If I make dinner, he eats it. If I don't fix dinner, he'll fend for himself - the same as when he was single. That means either picking up fast food or nuking a frozen dinner at home, making a simple sandwich, picking at the previously mentioned chips, or skipping dinner all together because he wasn't hungry enough to go through even that much trouble.
It's pointless for me to encourage someone who has zero interest in food. The bright side is he isn't fussy and will eat most things I put down in front of him. (The few things he won't eat, I simply don't make for him.) Therefore, I cook pretty much whatever I want.
Fortunately, he has interests in a lot of other things which we both share. Food just isn't one of them.
I expect ???
I am sorry, but you sound like you are training her like an employee..
I meant that I expect her to have the ability to do that, that's what the question asked. She wants to learn, so I teach her. I don't force her to do things she doesn't want to do. Sounds like you have some insecurities you're projecting onto other people.
As far as food/eating goes, very much so. That's okay - I'm high maintenance enough for both of us. I have a turkey in the oven right now, but I have a craving for lobster...
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