Cooking can be rewarding when it is a choice and no longer the onerous duty of the housewife, and when a dishwasher can lighten the load at the other end of the process.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I like cooking, but I think someone else ought to do the dishes.
Even cooking at home, the difference between my wife cooking and me cooking is major. When my wife cooks, the kitchen looks like a disaster. When I cook it's completely clean and organized and it doesn't look like anyone has been cooking in there.
Let me start with a confession: I don't enjoy cooking. The reason I usually do it at home is not because I'm a New Man or Jamie Oliver disciple, but because my wife's cooking is so bad. In fact, to me, cooking is less a pleasurable pastime than a defense against poisoning.
Even though I'm big on recipes, I love to make up my own dishes and when you take a risk in the kitchen, you learn a lot about food!
When I was first approached for 'Pass the Plate,' I was thrilled because I love to cook. And I love to cook healthy. The reason I started cooking was because I would go to restaurants and have just amazing food but feel so heavy and gross. I would go home and try to cook the same thing, but a healthy version.
Whenever we create dishes, we work very carefully and ask ourselves, 'Is there anything on the dish that really doesn't make the dish better?' Then we eliminate that. We try to stay very focused on really showcasing everything on the plate so nothing gets lost.
I've always enjoyed doing dishes. Maybe it was the fashionable yellow gloves that I loved so much. It's weird, I know, but I find cleaning cathartic.
In my generation, if a man washes the dishes, the older women still tend to cluster around and coo and thank him and praise him. But if a woman washes the dishes, it's business as usual, even if both man and woman have tough office jobs.
I don't have a dishwasher, and I hate washing dishes.
The wisest advice I ever received regarding the kitchen came from my mother: 'Do the dishes while you're cooking.'