Penance
In fact, cooking a great potato dish probably gives me more of a thrill than simply inserting a piece of truffle into something, whereby the truffle is just doing its business, no real work required; the only thing as a cook you have to make sure of, is that you don’t muck it up, but making a potato sublime, well, that’s a whole other story, that’s cooking.
It’s my thing.
The other day, I was mucking about with racks of barbecue style pork ribs for dinner and was up to my armpits in salt, pepper and spices when D came to the kitchen and peremptorily said,
“You can do the vacuuming now.”
As in right now, right this second, with no regard for what I was currently doing. As if my chore didn’t actually count as housework or even existed. It was right at that moment that it hit me with crystal clear clarity. My wife doesn’t count my cooking as housework in the same way that she would assess her own cooking contribution, solely because she knows I love doing it. When D cooks, it’s housework, when I cook, it’s something else. It’s not like work for me in her mind, because I’m getting pleasure from it. Hence she is able to command me to do real housework at the drop of a hat.
Stuff that matters.
It’s almost as if vacuuming is the penance required in order for me to cook or barbecue, sort of like a rosary full of Our Fathers. I’m sure the Pope has something to answer for here. But just to show there are no hard feelings, I would invite him over and cook for him, perhaps a nice Devil’s food cake. So long as he vacuums.
