Cooking for One

Yesterday in the supermarket I began reading the list of ingrediants in Goya Sazon. I knew it! The first one listed was msg. That accounted for the yuck taste in my mouth a few hours after dinner. And to think I'd been using it for years. Giving up smoking may have made my sense of taste even more acute than it was before. I put the package back on the shelf.

I commented to the woman shopping next to me in the aisle, "This stuff" I held it in my hand "is loaded with msg. I can't believe I've been using it for years." The woman turned to see who had spoken to her, and her eye beams focused on my grocery list. She answered, "Oh, you have a list!" She ignored what I said, and the product I held. She grinned as if she had met a circus clown, to see a man with a shopping list in his hand.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen this behavior.

I once engaged a woman at the office in casual Monday morning chat. The subject of Sunday morning breakfast came up. I allowed that I had made bacon and eggs. The woman came at me from left field, eyes wide open and radiant with disbelief. "YOU made BACON?!" she exclaimed, as if she had known me for years when actually she knew nothing but my first name.

I can read your shopping cart. I can tell if you cook for one, or two, or if children live in your house. I can tell if you cook at all, or care about your health. Because I can see these things I freely admit that few men cook, and virtually none are the full-time duty cooks in a family situation. This, ladies, I give you. I think quite a few of you want to moan and groan, to one degree or another, about the burden of "women's work." That's swell. But if you happen to see an exception to your view of the world, try not to make fun. Groan, or make fun - take your pick.

I grew up expecting to live a traditional life, but things didn't turn out that way. At one point I realized I was being held hostage by my own ideas about male-female relationships. In order to lower my own expectations I taught myself to cook. That was 30 years ago. I'm a better cook than any woman I ever met, mom included.

Poor put-upon American woman, stay out of my kitchen.