Who cooks?

Last night we had tapas including great guacamole next door with a delightful young Canadian couple and their three-month-old son. The family is using their nine-month maternity/paternity leaves to live in different places.

The guacamole was part of a tapas selection. The man had made it and the woman said he did a lot of the cooking. He admitted he loved cooking.

Once the role of only the wife, I know many families where the cooking is either shared or done totally by the man.

When I lived with another couple for years, we all took turns, although Bill was the most imaginative cook of us all. He could take any strange combinations of leftovers and whip up something lip- smacking good. We did have a rule. Whoever cooked didn't clean with the corollary, the person preparing the meal better cook neat.

In my marriage we alternate. I do Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sunday afternoons. Rick is responsible for Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sunday breakfasts. Admittedly both of us sometime announce we will be cooking at La Noisette, La Reserve, Gamette or some other local restaurant.

It has become a joke with the wait staff and when we eat lunch at any of the restaurants they'll ask whose day it is to cook. When we do cook we also have the cook-then-don't-clean rule carried over from what I think of as my Wigglesworth days. That was the name of the street we lived on in Boston. Many times though, both of us participate in the clean up and Rick often does more than his share.

I think of our Swedish friends, where the man does more of the cooking. In an American couple who go house sitting around the world, it is the man. We luck out because he's been known to show up with his homemade scones or invited us for any number of tasty dishes.

Does it really matter who does the cooking? Because eating is a pleasure, it only seems fair that the responsibility is shared unless one of the other loves doing it. In any case, I do love the eating part who ever puts the dishes on the table.