[Sca-cooks] OT/OOP From today's NY Times Food section...

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Wed Feb 14 18:43:23 PST 2007


I swear, this is not about me...

Adamantius


> February 14, 2007
>
> He Cooks. She Stews. It’s Love.
>
> By KATHERINE WHEELOCK
> YOLANDA EDWARDS was at a friend’s house in Brooklyn for dinner when  
> the hostess asked her to pull out a pot for boiling pasta. Ms.  
> Edwards froze. As her friend looked at her in disbelief, she said  
> she was not up to the job.
>
> “I used to think I was a good cook,” said Ms. Edwards, an editor at  
> the parenting magazine Cookie. “But my husband’s a kitchen bully.  
> He’s so critical, I second-guess myself now.”
>
> If there were a clinical diagnosis for her problem, it might be  
> called beta cook disorder. Even though Ms. Edwards blithely  
> prepared flank steak for dinner parties when she was in college,  
> she is now married to someone who takes charge in the kitchen: an  
> alpha cook.
>
> “I have no problem admitting that I’m an alpha,” said her husband,  
> Matthew Hranek, a photographer. “Yolanda wouldn’t know a corked  
> bottle of wine if you put it in front of her. When we met, she had  
> four days’ worth of dishes in her sink, most of which had what  
> looked like black bean on them. Ever since then, I’ve cooked for her.”
>
> True, life with an alpha cook can mean sitting back and watching  
> while someone else prepares restaurant-quality wild mushroom  
> risotto on a quiet Tuesday night.
>
> But it can also mean putting up with small culinary humiliations  
> and an unending patter of condescending remarks.
>
> When Robin Henry, an interior designer, helps make dinner with her  
> fiancé, Andrew Goldman, a writer, she endures his constant,  
> conspicuous scrutiny.
>
> “I’ll be standing there, sautéing onions, and I can feel him  
> standing over my shoulder, staring down at the pot and gnashing his  
> teeth,” Ms. Henry said. “He’ll say things like, ‘You should really  
> turn that down now.’ ”
>
> Ms. Henry relayed this — along with her feeling that she is  
> expected to greet any meal he might make on an average weeknight  
> with the equivalent of a marching band reception — with affection.
>
> “It’s part of his charm,” she said. Like many betas, she seems to  
> have made peace with her lower status. The only time bitterness  
> crept into her voice was when she talked about the tasks her fiancé  
> assigns her when she plays sous-chef.
>
> “He’s like, ‘Great, yes, come cook with me.’ And then he gives me  
> the take-the-chicken-out-of-the-package-and-rinse-it job,” she said.
>
> “I am like that,” Mr. Goldman agreed. “I wouldn’t blame Robin if  
> she didn’t want to cook with me. I’ve caught myself. It’s not so  
> much me telling her she’s doing something wrong. I think it’s just  
> that she catches my glances.”
>
> It was a nice fantasy while it lasted: rather than letting the lady  
> of the house bear the constant burden of cooking dinner, the modern  
> couple would share the work. Husbands would take an interest in  
> casseroles. Wives would slap slabs of meat on the grill. They would  
> read cookbooks and watch the Food Network together. The kitchen  
> would be a peaceful domain equally ruled by two people.
>
> For many couples, this never happened. Instead, wedged there in the  
> kitchen together, they fell into a power dynamic just as unequal  
> and emotionally fraught as the arrangement that puts the female  
> half in a frilly apron. Instead of a partnership, some couples say  
> that their relationship in the kitchen more closely resembles a  
> tiny dictatorship.
>
> This, of course, is the way it works in restaurants, where the  
> chef’s authority is nearly absolute. It is somebody else’s job to  
> peel the carrots. And that person is expected to peel the carrots  
> without muttering bitterly under his breath. The top-down system  
> helps to avoid chaos, speeds the process and enforces quality  
> control. But at home that same system can have emotional consequences.
>
> Suzanne Goin, the chef and owner of A.O.C. and Lucques in Los  
> Angeles, is married to David Lentz, the chef and owner of the  
> Hungry Cat in Hollywood. They are both alpha cooks, she said, but  
> that has only been an issue on their nights off.
>
> “In a professional kitchen you don’t really get your feelings  
> hurt,” Ms. Goin said. “It’s a little different at home though. If  
> David says, ‘Do you think this is a little salty?’ about something  
> I made, I’ll be like: ‘No. Do you think it’s too salty? Maybe your  
> palate’s off.’ ”
>
> Rebecca Charles, the chef and owner of Pearl Oyster Bar in  
> Greenwich Village and an admitted alpha, said: “Giving orders is  
> fine in a professional environment, but at home it’s a little  
> inappropriate. I can be a little bossy. Resentment can build, and  
> before you know it you have a pot flying at your head and you don’t  
> know why. Couples cooking together is probably the second leading  
> cause of divorce next to home renovations.”
>
> Statistical evidence does not back her up, but therapists are all  
> too familiar with marriages that run aground in the kitchen. “If  
> there’s a power struggle, it will come out in cooking together,”  
> said Dr. Marion F. Solomon, a couples therapist in Los Angeles. “If  
> a person feels that they’re not recognized for their abilities in  
> other areas, they can start to resent the partner who takes control  
> in the kitchen.”
>
> But couples who embrace their culinary inequality can still find  
> happiness, Dr. Solomon said.
>
> A year and a half ago, before marrying, Armistead Wilson, a teacher  
> in Nashville, went to premarital counseling with her future  
> husband, Edwin. It was there that she realized she felt guilty  
> about letting Mr. Wilson do all the cooking.
>
> “The counselor said I should just let it go,” Ms. Wilson said. “I  
> did. And I’m happier for it. The only time I get even slightly  
> frustrated now is when I’m excited about making something and he  
> takes it over on the sly by showing me a better chopping technique,  
> or by demonstrating how to flip an omelet in the pan. But I’m sure  
> many meals have been saved by this intrusion.”
>
> Dr. Solomon said that a couple can enjoy playing student and  
> teacher in the kitchen “if one person doesn’t feel capable and the  
> other loves to be a mentor.”
>
> That situation sounds dreamy, but many beta cooks say that the  
> alphas in their lives are not the most patient tutors. Amy Sedaris,  
> author of “I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence,” says that  
> whenever alphas and betas cook together, the alpha’s internal  
> monologue goes something like this: “Stop bothering me with your  
> questions. I don’t have time to show you how to chop an onion. If  
> you can’t chop an onion, get out of my kitchen.”
>
> Derek LaVallee, the wine columnist for The Hill, a Congressional  
> newspaper, and a public relations executive in Washington, was only  
> slightly more delicate with his wife, Vanessa. Mr. LaVallee loves  
> to cook, and when they were first married, Ms. LaVallee thought  
> that sharing his hobby with him might be fun. After all, before  
> they were married the two had happily shared a tiny office in the  
> Clinton White House.
>
> It turned out that working in the White House was easier. “I can’t  
> watch her cook,” Mr. LaVallee said. “I’d say things like, ‘I can’t  
> believe you’re julienning the carrots that way!’ And then I’d  
> think, ‘Did that really just come out of your mouth?’ ”
>
> Ms. LaVallee, the adviser to the president of Georgetown  
> University, now chooses to sit on the sideline with a glass of  
> wine. The subject of cooking rarely comes up, except when the  
> couple watch “Iron Chef.”
>
> “She’ll say: ‘See? They work together. He delegates,’ ” Mr.  
> LaVallee said. “And I’ll say, ‘Honey, if I had a team of  
> professional chefs working for me I’d be happy to delegate.’ ”
>
> There is evidence that alphas and betas are not born that way.  
> Occasionally, somebody will live happily as a second-class kitchen  
> citizen for years, only to emerge as a fully capable cook after the  
> relationship ends. Lettie Teague, an editor at Food & Wine  
> magazine, said she was content in her role as the beta in her  
> marriage to the food writer Alan Richman. “I lived a beta cook’s  
> life because Alan was so much the better cook,” she said. “I was  
> the alpha cleaner. Sometimes I would clean up around him.”
>
> Since they separated last year Ms. Teague has found herself cooking  
> more, especially for company. And she is realizing what she might  
> have been missing as keeper of the Palmolive. Guests don’t ask, Who  
> got this silverware so shiny? With one hand on their belly, they  
> praise the alpha. “There is huge ego gratification in making a good  
> dinner,” Ms. Teague said.
>
> If there was inequality in the Richman-Teague kitchen, it left no  
> apparent scars. The two remain friendly. “Long-term problems are  
> caused by money and things like that,” Mr. Richman said. “Fights  
> over cooking only cause loathing between couples for two to four  
> days.” He did add, though, that when there is a male alpha in the  
> kitchen, there’s very little anyone can do to alter the dynamic.
>
> “Men have gotten better at cooking, and that’s all positive,” Mr.  
> Richman said. “But men can’t share. If you can find a man who’s  
> O.K. with a woman being in charge in the kitchen, tell any woman to  
> marry him immediately.”
>
> So, over time, an embattled beta will find ways to level the  
> playing field, ways that do not involve wresting the meat  
> thermometer from the alpha’s hand. This is the case with Ms.  
> Edwards, who may have lost the ability to choose a pasta pot when  
> put on the spot, but who has carved out a particular position of  
> power of her own.
>
> For one, she makes oatmeal and eggs that her 3-year-old daughter  
> prefers to anything her husband cooks.
>
> She also discovered the beta’s best weapon, and the secret to  
> living with an alpha cook: criticism. An alpha is nothing without a  
> beta.
>
> “I couldn’t strive to be good without her,” said Mr. Hranek, her  
> husband. “If she’s not happy with the food, I’m devastated.”




More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list