In The Kitchen.
I am recently retired, while my wife Anne has continued on with her working life - commuting daily into the City.
When we both worked, we had an agreement that Anne would do the cooking and I would take care of the clean-up. My Retirement changed that... now I do both.
At least in the main.
My favourite meals are those that can be cooked (Microwaved) in 5 to 8 minutes. I say 'favourite' only because of the ease of preparation.
These dinners are the ones that promote on their packaging 'no calories, no sodium, no fat' and all have 'no taste' to speak of.
Even more than the no-taste complaint, the thing that amazes me is that anyone can think that one of these tiny presentations would be sufficient to sustain life and limb. Even a gerbil would find the need to come back for seconds or thirds.
I get around this problem by microwaving a half dozen of these frozen, tasteless entrees at once.
Anne is so kind, she never complains and when asked what she thinks of these 'dinners', invariably replies that "anything tastes good if you don't have to prepare it yourself"'.
I'm skeptical.
Anyway, to the 'Two Many Cooks' issue.
Recently I decided to vary my menu - from fast food - to cooked from scratch. I decided to make homemade baked beans.
I immediately consulted Anne - "take out a large pot, put in the beans and cover them with water and let them stand overnight". Hell, other than the time factor, this is not much harder than microwaving the weight watcher special.
It got more difficult, starting next morning.
I looked at the pot of beans - now well and truly wet and thought 'what next'?
Back to Anne, who was busy getting herself ready for her day at the office.
"Just find a good cook book", she said, "they all have recipes for baked beans".
Sounded simple and it was - in no time, I had found a recipe and started my preparations. A teaspoon of that, a tablespoon of the other and so on.
Then Anne entered the kitchen.
"What are you doing" she asked. I told her following a recipe for the baked beans as per her instructions.
"I never use a recipe for that" she countered, at which point Anne started to fire this that and the other thing into my pot of soaked beans.
She got half way through, when she announced it was time for her to go. Her last words to me were to 'throw in the balance of the ingredients and cook the beans throughout the day'.
I was optimistic, but what I failed to take into account was the fact that half of the ingredients were put in by memory - Anne's memory, and the other half were the result of me religiously following a recipe.
Nevertheless, I cooked those beans and watched over them like a loving parent all day long. They smelled pretty good - but not as quite as good as I remembered other bake beans smelling.
And then the moment arrived - or at least Anne did from work. I set some of the beans out in two large soup bowls and as I did, I admired my first 'from scratch dinner' - no more frozen dinners for us.
Until I tasted the beans that is.
They were awful.
I looked at Anne and saw a look of abject horror - she concurred.
What went wrong I thought?
"You did follow the recipe did you not Galagher"?
As I see it..
"Galagher"
