Who Does the Cooking?

The prompt for today is;

Who does most of the cooking in your home?

That would be a combination of me and Bertolli Italian dinners.  On weekends, when I have a show to review in Sacramento, I haul out one of the reliable Bertolli dinners.  My cousin Kathy recommended them to me years ago when we were talking about the dreary boredom of having to find something to cook for two people every night.  I started buying them and it is now my routine to cook a Bertolli dinner before a show in Sacramento.  I generally don't eat much of it because I'm not usually hungry for pasta, so one bag is plenty for us to have a light dinner so that we are full, but don't fall asleep in whatever show I'm reviewing.

But as a general rule, I do all the cooking, sometimes even preparing it myself!  I used to actually cook, as in "create a meal" when we had kids and foreign guests here, but now that it's only Walt and myself, I still prepare meals most nights, but get lazy and use frozen dinners too.  Why go to the work of making lasagna for two people when Costco has a perfectly good lasagna that will serve us for two nights an all I have to do is heat it up.

Walt always makes is own lunch and gets pretty creative, with either Chinese or hot flavors -- usually a top ramen base with all sorts of vegetables added and then whatever flavor (sesame oil or sirracha) he wants to augment it with.

He rarely cooks dinner, which is fine because he does so much else around the house.  Years ago we found a book of Beer Cookery and he found a recipe for lamb chips with capers and beer that we both loved.  Every five years or so, he'll cook that and I always enjoy it.

The real cook in the family is Tom.  When he was still a kid living at home, he learned to make omelettes and made the best in the family.  We all loved it when Tom could whip up one of his special omelettes.  He was never afraid to try anything.  I once said that I thought he could go into the refrigerator and take out sardines, peanut butter and chopped olives and somehow come up with a dish that would be delicious.  This was in the days before shows like Chopped on the Food Network.  He'd be great on that show!

Then he started working in restaurants and honed his natural abilities as a cook and now whenever we go to visit his family, it's almost always Tom who cooks.  He's a terrific barbeque chef.  And I love that he is teaching Brianna to cook.  She made ... made ... spaghetti the other day.  That's something I've never done.  But he has one of those pasta rollers and he taught her how to use it.  

Ned is also a very good cook, though not quite as adventurous as Tom.  I'm not sure when he started cooking for himself, but he whips up an excellent meal...and is the best party planner around.

Jeri cooks some now, but I think most of the cooking is done by her husband Phil, or they do it together.