The Household COO

From time to time, my SIL (the chef) returns for an extended holiday break and she spoils us all rotten by cooking up a storm in the kitchen - a storm of desserts, sweets and other treats, that is.  Curiously, I asked her one day why she didn’t make dinner for us.  Before I get to her answer, I should clarify this point.  She does cook meals for us occasionally but not very often.  I thought it rather odd since dinner would give her the perfect opportunity to test out recipes - something I know she really enjoys doing.

Anyway, the reason why she doesn’t really like cooking dinner is because it is difficult to plan when the family has so many specific meal requests.  I never really thought much of it myself until I volunteered to cook dinner one night.  That was when I realised the stress of cooking for picky eaters.  Yes, I know, my son’s a picky eater, too, but when he refuses to eat my cooking, I just offer him my one-stop solution - breastmilk - and he’s happy again.  Unfortunately, I can’t exactly do that for the family. 

Here’s a brief list of meal restrictions in this family (after you read through it, you probably wouldn’t want to cook for us either):

1. There’s got to be dishes with real meat (and by real meat I mean chunks of meat - mince meat doesn’t cut it by a long shot) or the men in the family will be crying murder.
2. My MIL’s a Taoist so we can’t have beef.
3. My hubby and SIL won’t eat pork but my FIL loves the stuff so we have to have at least two different meat dishes (unless it’s Bah Ku Teh, in which case, the hubby will make an exception).
4. My hubby and SIL won’t eat carrots or cauliflower so there has to be a veggie dish that they’ll eat (in fact, there are a lot of veggies the hubby won’t eat - potatoes, lettuce of any sort, zucchini or any other like veggies).
5. My MIL abhores anything that is “ready made” (in the jar or out of a can, etc.), although the other day, I discovered ways to circumvent this issue which is also a trick my late Aunt used to pull with my Uncle who also refuses any food that bears the words “instant”, “quick”, or “easy” on the packet.  The trick is to make it taste like it was made from scratch and make sure you dispose of all the evidence.  My mother, I’ve discovered is also really good at this - she can make packet Rendang taste like the real McCoy, although I’ve yet to learn how she does it.

When you consider the fact that my repertoire of Chinese recipes is extremely limited, you’ll understand why I hesitate before volunteering to cook dinner again.

If you compare this list of food restrictions against the list of food restrictions in my family - which is none, maybe you’ll understand why I feel even more frustrated about cooking.  My Dad, my brother and I eat anything and everything my mother serves.  In fact, there isn’t a dish she makes that I don’t like eating.  The hubby likes to think that I have no taste when it comes to food and anything that I dislike means “don’t go anywhere near it without a ten-foot pole” because if I don’t like it, it’s got to be REALLY BAD.

Now that my in laws have gone to the States for a holiday and my SIL2’s convocation, making dinner has fallen back into my hands again.  The good news is that I only have one fussy eater to contend with (the hubby, since Gavin can still be easily placated with milk).

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 7:46 am and is filed under cooking, food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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