The Cuisine

Boyfriend and I cook most days. Contrary to what my writings here sometimes convey, we do not in fact live on chocolate ice cream and toaster schnitzel.

We do have a few solid habits that have developed. At least once a week, there's spinach with mashed potatoes in there somewhere. Another day, we'll probably have pasta pesto. Once a week McDonald's, once we order out from an Italian place and most of the time we have pizza in the freezer for a quick dinner. We may deviate a bit, but usually we're not eating ready-made food.

For breakfast, it's usually cereal. Lunch, if we notice it, is whatever will fill our bellies. But dinner, we usually make something. It's usually something easy, something with a very low screw-up potential. You can't overcook bolognese sauce. It's very hard to make mashed potatoes too mushy. True, you can overcook pasta and burn pizzas, but Boyfriend's second girlfriend is his phone, and it has a timer.

We cook together. Boyfriend is in charge of pans and ovens, I'm in charge of pots. Chopping and peeling usually is a toss-up, depending on what it is. Boyfriend is a great cook, even if he doesn't believe it, but he's also a perfectionist and a teensy bit clumsy. If he drops something to the floor, I learn new and interesting words. If I drop something to the floor, he's more forgiving. I don't care who drops what, since we never cook for an army anyway. Yes, it's a mess, but it's very rarely a big mess. We have sponges and soap and cloths and water and, on rare occasions when someone (okay, me) misses the bowl while handling sugar, a vacuum cleaner.

And I love baking. Peanut butter-smartie cookies are becoming a glutenfree staple in the household, just because they're easy to make and I love the smell of the dough. That, and they're delicious. Then there's cupcakes and cakes and the ill-fated chocolate bread. We usually have some stuff that's starting to go slightly stale by Friday, but that's when Boyfriend's friends come over, and they seem to be omnivorous.

Our burgers were delicious. My carrot mash got complimented by Boyfriend's friends, even if the idea got some funny looks. Boyfriend has gone off store-bought rice pudding since he tasted the stuff I can make from scratch. I have amazed with my ability to bake cakes without store-bought mixes or adding oil.

But we do cheat. Instant mash happens frequently. I don't bash pork into submission for schnitzels, I get those things from the store's freezer section. We usually cook meat that's either ground to a pulp or cut in small pieces, mostly because we want to make sure it gets fully cooked. And our sauces are usually a powdery mix with some ingredients added.

But we do make the effort of cooking. We have the time and we're willing to develop the skills for it. Never mind that we've killed a few utensils by leaving them in hot pans or putting them in the dishwasher when they weren't supposed to. Yes, sometimes things turn out crispier than expected. When you fail, you can always have a nutella sandwich.

Or chocolate ice cream.