by Brianna Popsickle

Created on: November 03, 2009

I told my husband we'd been invited out for dinner but declined. We'd been out a fair bit and were trying to watch our spending.

Yeah, you're probably right, save the money, he agreed.

It's too bad, I explained. At this new restaurant you're in an open kitchen and actually get a cooking lesson and prepare your own dinner with the help of the chef.

We should do it! my husband said, suddenly excited.

Huh? What about the money?

Oh, we can handle it, tell them we'll go.

Suddenly I felt insulted. Now the truth was coming out. He wanted me to have a cooking lesson. This wasn't the first time he'd made a derogatory remark about my cooking.

There was the time I was making pork chops and he asked, Did your mother boil all of her meat too?

And if I had to listen to him tell the story of how he hitchhiked a hundred miles to see me when we started dating, only to be served Kraft Dinner and canned soup, I would scream. It didn't seem to bother him at the time; he kept coming back didn't he?

But it's not just him; I hear it from everyone. Friends say I should open my own truck- stop. My perked coffee would keep truckers awake for days.

My sisters won't let me forget the time when I babysat for a family and was asked to prepare potato salad. I made it just fine. I just failed to peel the potatoes.

OK people. Get over it already. I was twelve!

I was visiting my parents recently and offered to make lunch. My father hovered over me asking, Why are you using that knife? and I put the mayo on first.

Gaaaaaad, I said, I'm forty-something I can make a sandwich.

My mother was worse. She couldn't say enough about the lunch. This is so good, this is the best sandwich I've ever had, she said proudly.

For God sakes mom, it's a sandwich, I wanted to yell. It occurred to me it might be her guilt talking. After all, she had taught me everything she knew in the kitchen and God help me, I've taught my daughter. We need to break the cycle.

I've tried to explain, it's not my cooking. It's my kitchen. Since our dining room is my office, our tiny kitchen is an eat-in.

I once hosted Thanksgiving dinner for thirteen and had to get everyone to stand up and shift, whenever I needed to open the oven door.

Regularly my daughter has to move from her seat in order for the dishwasher to be loaded. My husband constantly hits his head on the light fixture hanging over the table, and my son has to move whenever the dog wants out during dinner.

Get the picture?

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