Cheeseburgs From Outer Space: Kitchen Bitchin’

I hate to cook. There’s something immoral about that, I know. Something unwomanly. Ungenerous. Suspect. It’s close to saying you don’t like children. If a man says, “I don’t like to cook,” people would wonder why he even bothered to say it. Who cares? Or they would would think, “Of course he doesn’t like cooking—he’s into powerlifting or BASE jumping, probably”. But a woman who does not like to cook…there’s something wrong there.

I don’t like to cook the way you might not like to change the oil in your car three times a day every week.  I only tell my friends I hate cooking if I have to. When a conversation—or worse, a group conversation—turns to recipes, and if it goes on too long, I might be driven to jump in and say something like, “Did you hear that Putin broke his nose?” But if the stuffed cabbage comes up again, I might be vexed enough to tell my friends that I don’t like to cook. There might be a shocked silence. A pall might be cast. But they might switch the subject to Putin. 

Still, people love to try to convince you to believe the things they believe in, to shun the things they shun, and to like things they like. Perhaps it’s some atavistic need. Years ago when I confessed to a then-friend that I didn’t like to cook, she went off and bought me the “I Hate To Cook Book” By Peg Bracken. (It was the most disappointing gift of my life.) By giving me this book full of recipes, she felt I would learn to cook and like it. She needed me to cook and like it. She was unable to respect my choice to NOT like it. 

Back to the kitchen. I am very anal, I guess, in that when I make something, anything—a moleskin pocket protector, a pigmented paper pulp prayer rug, or a griefless elegy for my ex—I want it to endure, to remain relevant. You spend hours cooking Kobe Beef with Matsutake Mushrooms, and it’s good. And then you poop it all out the next day. And that makes me think of the meaninglessness of life. Anyway, that’s just one reason I hate to cook. 

When my husband announced that he wanted a divorce, just before I blacked out I asked, “Whyever for?” And he said, “We don’t fill each other’s needs.” Curious, I enquired, “What needs?” Just before I hit the floor, I heard him say— and this is true!— “Well, I’ve asked you several times to try Hamburger Helper, and you never did.” I would rather cook Kobe Beef with Matsutake Mushrooms AND haricots verts amandines seven days a week than to cook hamburger with that whorish Helper. I CAN cook. I DO cook. I jes’ ain’t into it. And that’s no lab-grown baloney. 

Note: 

PRODUCT INGREDIENTS of Hamburger Helper:

Enriched Pasta (wheat flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Corn Starch, Salt, Wheat Flour. Contains 2% or less of: Modified Whey, Onion Powder, Color (caramel color, annatto extract), Maltodextrin, Potassium Chloride, Hydrolyzed Corn, Soy, and Wheat Protein, Yeast Extract, Natural And Artificial Flavor, Vegetable Oil (canola, soybean, and/or sunflower oil), Spice, Monoglycerides, Sugar, Safflower Oil, Silicon Dioxide (anticaking agent).