I’m not sure where to start. I only know that I’ve been wanting
to write for a long time. Too long. And so here I am writing. Not apologising
for not posting a damn thing for over a year. Not feeling guilty for neglecting
my need to get things out of my head and onto a page. Not being hard on myself
for procrastinating the shit out of anything that wasn’t necessary to day to
day living just right at this moment in time.
Partly, I want to write about the book I’m reading.
The other things buzzing around in my head are as follows:
- moving to New Zealand (after 10 years of trying)
- reaching my 10 year goal and not knowing what to
do next and (oddly) being ok with that
- having arguments over the phone with my manfriend
with a thirteen hour time difference and then lovingly resolving those arguments
and realising that we’ve got this more than we ever thought we had before
- adulting according to society by completing
paper work to meet deadlines for the pet transport of my dog while also making
sure I don’t just eat cereal for dinner while organising rent, bills, getting a
car and a place to live
- staying in touch with friends old and new and
negotiating a new job
- wondering how I got so horribly unfit that my
dreams of being a good surfer again and someone who is active seems insurmountably
unattainable
- realising that my previous love of cooking and
its inherent expression of love that I weaved through my cooking for others dissipated
two years ago and now I resent it every day
- being unattached to the outcomes of anything I
set my mind to
- feeling lost in terms of how to start doing the
things I love after putting so much of that aside for the best part of two
years
- mothering, listening, the mental load and the division
of labour at home
- how I’m going to find an outlet for all these
things above.
Clearly, this blog can’t contain all those thoughts.
Sometimes, it’s better just to start where you’re at.
Let’s start with the book.
It’s got a neon green cover. I’ve been meaning to read it
since it came out. Friends had read it. I’d perused through it a few times in
the library. Podcasts were listened to. There’s no reason that I didn’t read it
before now. Except maybe, in the odd way that books can arrive in your life
just as you need them. This one had to wait for certain aspects of my life to
catch up before I fully clicked with all that the author had written about.
Sometimes books are just waiting for us to begin.
When I arrived back in New Zealand, this time with the
knowing intention that this was final and I was not leaving this time round, I
stayed in a house bus with fuschia pink and the same neon green colouring as
the book. Set on the top part of a rolling hill leading down to my friends’
section of land, my favourite Karioi mountain was blocked from view but I could
see their new house build, Jess’ stunning English country garden planted up and
could hear their son Alistair’s sweet five year old voice outside my window
while he trapped cicadas to listen to them buzz in his cupped hands.
I was thankful every day of being there. Not simply
because it was free accommodation. In fact, that became less than secondary. I
was thankful for the space, the time, the lack of outside influences and noises
and lights and hassle that came from everywhere else when I lived in Dublin.
I could hear birds and insects rather than buses and traffic
lights. I went to bed when it got dark at 9pm and woke up when there was a buzz
outside early morning.
The time to make tea and drink it before it went cold. The
space to take a few breaths and write a gratitude list. The chance to get my hands
in the sandy soil and pull out creeping weeds, mulch up around feijoa and fig
trees and sweat under the sun. Breaking every day down into its simplest tasks
was an enormous relief after last year.
The aspect I cherished the most, however, were the
relatable, thoughtful and inquisitive conversations we had at breakfast, lunch
and dinner. Politics, land, energy, soil, tree planting, favourite desserts,
bushfires, climate grief, travelling, personalities, how we met stories. No
topic was off limits and it was such a beautiful and nourishing time. No tv, no
clock, no interrupting messages from our phones to intervene.
Many times, myself and Jess talked about domestics,
motherhood, goals and choice.
As a mother of a five year old with Nathan, she is calm,
loving, dedicated and nurturing. Alistair innocently told her the other day
that he never wants to leave and just wants to marry her. He imitated her tone
of voice to tell a play mate that he could jump and roll down the hill, “if you
feel safe” and it warmed my heart. The greatest aspect of Jess’ parenting and
our conversations, is the realism.
One part of that realism that we threw ourselves into was
the topic of cooking, how we both used to love it and happily spend hours in
the kitchen cooking for our men and friends and selves and now, the last few
years, we both fucking hate it.
We still make the healthy, dairy free home made pesto
with our hand held blenders. And it still tastes amazing. But we both want to
clock someone over the head with the blender. We budget and meal plan and make
food from scratch. We boil pot fulls of potatoes from the garden (her) or the
market (me) and turn those spuds into something beautiful with a homemade
mayonnaise or a fresh herb-seasoned omelette or a mild curry with freshly steamed
jasmine rice. We bake muffins and make energy balls and think about time and
money and health and dietary requirements and preferences. And we’re both fucking
sick of it. Over it. Hate cooking.
And we’re both equally devastated.
How did this happen? We both talked about the point for a
long time. When her son was born and when me and Carlos moved in together. When
cooking changed from a creative expression of love and pleasurable food to a
day in, day out expected chore that was sapped of value for its sheer ordinariness.
When Carlos and I first started dating, we went to a
small park with a little pond where his dog Vera could swim in to cool off. It
took us forty minutes of cycling in the Spanish heat to get there, I realise
now, but at the time I looped in and out of the cycle lane users with abandoned
ease as we made our way there. I had gone to the market before and smelled about
six mangos until I had found two that were tropically perfect. I handmade
granola with toasted coconut furls. I whipped coconut cream to a cloud and
blitzed vanilla and maple through it all to make vegan compotes for our lunch. Quinoa
salad with fresh avocado, lemons and vine tomatoes with ripped fresh basil
leaves on the side. I played music as I spent all morning swaying around my
kitchen lovingly stirring, whisking, dicing, assembling and neatly packing all
the various elements of this romantic meal for two.
Looking back, I didn’t need Carlos to be amazed at all I’d
done. I had no expectations as I swanned about the kitchen that morning. I just
loved going to the market and having the time to cook for those I loved. I even
put the same amount of love into making food for myself back then. It was
bliss.
When I took the lids of the various containers, his eyes
widened and he asked questions about what was in each tub. He was appreciative
and expressive. And then he ate the vegan mango compote and announced, “wow,
that’s amazing!” and instead of being uplifted with my previous people pleasing
barometer, I just smiled because not only had I made someone I love happy with my
food but I had also made myself happy with the time and care and joy I got from
making it.
Fast forward two years. We’ve just spent a six month
winter in Ireland eating dinner on the sofa with both dogs while watching Netflix
followed by an entire cup of peanut M&M’s he gets for free from Facebook. I’ve
come home from another shit day at work to our hyper dogs only to drop my shit
(stuff) on the bed and bring them outside for a walk straight away. I try to
relax and breathe but all I can do is keep an eye on both dogs as they run
around and look on in dismay as people have littered along the canal side
walkway as far as the eye can see. I’m trying to think of what to make for
dinner. Again.
You see, in saving money, we budget our shopping list
severely and I have to decide what to make for dinner, that’s not vegetables
with rice or vegetables with pasta or vegetables with noodles. Again.
There is no discernible difference in the meals I make
anymore. Sometimes it’s soup but then it’s soup with vegetables and some rice
thrown in to bulk it up. There are some mixed dried herbs in there. Sometimes,
if I’m feeling adventurous, I throw in a table spoon of apple cider vinegar. Go
wild! It’s Groundhog Day in the kitchen. We buy a near identical shopping list every weekend and then I try to make
something nutritious and affordable with what we’ve purchased and every day
that I sit down to eat on the sofa in our tiny cottage, I mindlessly put the
food into my mouth and chew and get annoyed at Carlos that I have to remind him
to say thank you.
“I forget” he says.
“I’m always thankful that you cook” he says.
“Then why don’t you say ‘Thank you’? Why do I always have
to remind you?”
“You know I thank you for your food and for cooking. You
always make amazing food”
“Then why don’t you ever say it’s amazing anymore like
you used to?”
“This is just what happens, love. When you’re in a long
relationship, you don’t need to say those things anymore”
“Well I need you to say them, so say it”
“Thank you”
And now I feel like a needy asshole.
Why?
Because truth be told, I know he appreciates me cooking
and meal prepping. But also because it’s taken me this long to realise that I’m
not losing my mind; I’m realising that after close to thirty years of not
letting patriarchal systems and expectations dictate my life, those systems
have nonetheless parasitically creeped in and infected the one thing I hold
more dear than all else: my completely lacking-in-expectation joy in expressing
love to others through my cooking.
Why in a modern, cohabiting relationship did it take a
standoff from me after a month of living in our new place for him to learn when
the bins go out, where we keep the spare toilet paper and where the teabags go?
Why did I need to ask him and remind him at least four times in one week to
hoover the floor when he never has to remind me once to make the shopping list
or cook the dinner?
Why has he still not figured out if cardboard goes in the
recycling bin or the compost?
And then I started reading the book. Clementine Ford’s
Boys
will be Boys and the rage within me rose higher on each page turn.
Let me be clear, before we moved in together, Carlos
cycled with me back home, forty minutes out his way, to make sure I got home safe.
He would ooooh and ahhhhh over a slice of toast with
avocado on it if I made it.
He used to go the bakery around the corner to get pastries
and coffees, come back and set the table and give me a hug before the pancakes
I was making were even ready.
He’s my greatest supporter when I have a job interview or
a wobbly moment of self-doubt.
And even now, living together, he offers to take the dogs
for an extra walk before going to bed and tells me to go ahead and relax and he’ll
be home soon. When we go to the supermarket together for groceries, he packs
the heaviest items into his backpack so that I don’t have to carry so much. He
cracks the best jokes when I’m stressed, holds me accountable for my choices, goes
to my favourite Vietnamese restaurant even though he’s probably sick of going
there so often and always has my back.
So why am I so friggin enraged when he doesn’t do the
laundry/hoover/take out the bins/wash the dishes/make a shopping list/remember
to give the dogs their meds/put the toilet seat down/rinse down the shower/fold
the laundry when it’s done/turn off the tumble dryer/put out the bins on bin
day/take the bins in once they’ve been emptied/remember the vet’s opening
times/cook?!
Mindless, unaware, patriarchal society structures my friend.
I’m tired
I forget things easily
You’re so much better than me at doing that
It’s easier for you
I do other things for us
These are not new sentences to this one relationship and
they are also not unique to my relationship alone. Talking to any of my female
friends in hetero relationships and the exact same issues appear.
And as a modern, feminist cis-gender woman, I do not want
this dynamic and to speak out about it only to find that the next layer to this
ingrained structure is a long, repetitive, tiring, cyclically unsatisfactory
tennis match where inevitably neither he nor I get what we want.
He ends up feeling that his inputs to the relationship
are not “good enough”.
I end up feeling that if I want something done right, as
a modern woman, I better do it myself.
Only catch? The whole point was I didn’t want to be the
one doing it. I didn’t want to remember/cook/clean every goddamn thing.
As it turns out, Clementine Ford has discussed and
experienced the same structures at play in my relationship and she experiences
the same frustrations even though she too is in a relationship with a similarly
clued in, feminist man who is aware of gendered roles and still unknowingly
sinks into them.
So my love of cooking is gone. Markets and food blogs and
photography and writing and inventing dishes. All gone.
But I want it back.
Enter the Thermomix, a contraption I had up until now
associated with rich Instagram influencers with nothing better to do, as parodied
by the hilarious
The
Katering Show.
Jess invited me to a demonstration at her house. We watched
the high revolution blade make icing sugar out of raw cane sugar in two
seconds.
It’s blitzed through a whole chilly and a thumb end of fresh
ginger in two seconds as if an old Indonesian lady had been pounding them in a
pestle and mortar for the guts of an hour.
And when I say two seconds, I’m not adlibbing; the digital
timer on the interactive screen told us so.
We made vegan ice cream in two minutes and steamed kumara
curry with homemade cauliflower rice that wafted throughout the kitchen in twenty
three minutes. I shit you not.
The flavours were incredible, there was minimal prep and
it was one container with one attachment. It was the first time in two years
that I got excited about the smells in a kitchen and yet we were still making
vegetables with rice but this time, it had flavour, there were new ingredients
and none of the blunt knives, shitty pots, cracked steamers or slow ass blender
blades of all my previous kitchens combined featured.
And yet I wasn’t sold. Me and Jess talked a lot. Did we
really need a Thermomix to cook for us? Could we not just get some decent knives
and do a short cookery course to get our kitchen groove back? Then two
realisations occurred to us. Jess realised that as they’ve been building their
own house, Nathan will often say to her that he thinks they need to buy a new
electric saw/drill/cable/whatever and since it’s a tool he needs to save him
time and do his job more efficiently, she doesn’t think twice and tells him of
course.
If we are to cook efficiently in our domestic space of
the kitchen, surely then we should have our own tools. Jess would never tell
Nathan to get on with it and just make do and saw the wood by hand. Not that he
would ever expect her to make do in the kitchen but Jess and I both realised
that as women, even modern women, we expect ourselves to make do with the shit,
sub standard ‘tools’ we have at our disposal to crank out at least one if not
three meals a day, seven days a week. What?!
This Thermomix seemed to be combination of a steamer, hot
pot, high speed blender, set of knives, timer, accurate scales and cookery book
in one. Why the hell where we thinking about not getting one?!
I then pointed out the aspect of cooking I had grown to
hate the most-the mental load-the one that
French
artist Emma illustrated so aptly in the Guardian. I’m halfway through
cooking when I get a phone call or I’m late coming home from work.
One scenario is starting to cook and when Carlos comes
home allowing the following conversation to ensue:
“Hey love. Great, you’re home. Can you finish dinner for
me? I just need to call my Dad”
“Sure, what can I do?”
(Pause as I quickly task manage a list of requirements,
cooking times, recipe measurements and steps in my head and tailor it to this situation)
“Ok, so just boil the potatoes, blend the pesto
ingredients and boil the eggs. We can add some salad on the side when I get
back”
“Ok”
3 minutes later, his voice trails down the hallway
corridor.
Where’s the pesto? How many potatoes do you want? How long
should I boil the eggs for? Cold water or hot water? Do we have stuff to make
salad?
I tell Dad I’ll call him back. Mentally, it’s just easier
that I do it myself. I will remain frustrated. He doesn’t understand what he’s
done wrong. He was happy to help me and make dinner.
The Thermomix has an inbuilt scale with a ‘next step’
touch screen recipe built in. The instructions are clear and the timer sautés
and steams and boils and simmers for you. This is the moment I realised that I
may consider buying one. Because the mental load would disappear. I could,
during the week, split the cooking 50/50 and just walk away. I could spend my
weekends using a tool that helps me make pesto and nut milk so that there’s so
much less horrible packaging in our home. I could create at the weekends with my
time. The time I would make back with space in my head after the mental load leaked
out and away.
Do I need a Thermomix to do that or simply keep reading
the book and get Carlos to cook 50% of the time while I leave the house? Will I
continue to be disappointed or jaded with my own cooking? Will I still need to
manage the household simply because I’m a woman? Do I really need to buy a
machine that costs almost $2500 NZD simply because I’ve lost the will to live
in the kitchen?
I just don’t know. All I’m sure of is that my loving, practical,
attentive, modern and feminist partner still falls into the same trap of
expecting me to take the household management mental load on 24X7 and I find
myself resentful in the kitchen making vegetables with rice and no flavour or
sighing at a raised toilet seat or another half completed shopping list.
I think back to my modern parents and all the feminist
and modern ideals they raised us with. I think to the regular conversations I
have with my female friends about their identical predicament. I think back on
the chapter I just finished in Boys will be Boys and I realise we have a
very long way to go yet.
And a Thermomix isn’t going to magically solve the issue.
Though maybe recognising that we are lacking in sufficient tools (including
time, energy, creativity, money and hardware) could be the starting point.