The Reluctant Chef

I burnt dinner last night. It was a nice cut of steak that I seared on both sides before leaving it to cook gently in the grill pan. Nothing to it, but when I pulled it out of the pan, it was more singed than seared.

I’d love to tell you this was a one off incident, but it’s not. I burn everything. Steak, sausages, hamburgers, stir-fry, rissoles, spaghetti sauce – if I have cooked it in a pan, I have burnt it.

Now I know what you’re thinking: Turn the heat down! Unfortunately, this is a problem that can’t be solved by mere temperature. It’s much more serious than that. No, I’m afraid that I burn things for one simple reason: lack of interest.

It’s not that I don’t like food. In fact, I love it. It’s the cooking process itself that is so incredibly tedious. It all starts out well. I can marinate, I can preheat and I can toss the meat on the pan. And then everything goes downhill. I get side tracked. The kids are fighting, or they need to go through the shower, or most likely, I’m in the middle of a really good book. It’s hard to worry about a piece of meat when a character’s life hangs in the balance. Surely, it will be right for one more page…

The weirdest thing is that my husband of 18 years seems largely oblivious to the fact that I cannot cook. I don’t think he realises quite how often he walks into the kitchen, sniffs the air and says, ‘Did you burn something?’ Not a trace of sarcasm evident, just genuine curiosity.

This lack of awareness is mostly because we have always shared dinner duties and my husband is an amazing cook who does all the technical stuff. He bastes and blanches, rests and reduces, pares and poaches, and then tops it all off by pouring delectable sauces over every meal. The only time something burns in his kitchen is when he puts a match to it and flambés it. And given that he used to let his culinary talents loose at least four times a week, it only left me a few nights to whack a casserole in the oven. Even I could manage that.

Now, alas, our situation has changed and for the next few months, I’m doing all the cooking. All of it. That’s seven nights a week, week after tedious week. Unfortunately, the kids are at that simple stage where they favour meat and three veg or stir-fries, so I’ve had to drag out the grill pan in order to give them some variety.

It’s killing all of us.

So, really, the only option remaining is for me to step up, reclaim the pan and start serving up some well cooked meals. I’m intelligent. I’m capable. If I can manage a career and a household then I can stop feeding us charcoal. And I will… right after this next chapter.