Why?! why can't he cook a simple meal for once?

[PavlovtheCat]

Why does he have to spend over a bloody hour cooking all the time?! He is cooking risotto, he does not have to fucking kill the chicken first. The kids are getting angsty, they are hungry. I am hungry. I need to take my meds and I can't til I have eaten. He has taken so long the local pharmacy is shut and I can't get more meds this evening.

He takes this long over everything he cooks. He can't do pasta and pesto, he has to fry up onions, add this and that, herbs and somesuch, poke about it with it.

When he makes a sandwich he does not do a cheese sandwich, he does a toasted sandwich with fancy pickles, sliced onions and tomatoes, herbs, with a side salad.

When he does breakfast he does not do toast. Or cereal. He does poached or boiled eggs, or banana pancakes.

FFS.

AIBU to just want to fucking eat at a reasonable hour?! just some nice simple food?

And before you tell me to do it myself, I can't. My back has gone and I am layed up. else I would.

OP

This is why take aways deliver.

YANBU. Cooking is a task that has to be done and if it's going to take that long then start earlier when there are others depending on it. Also, why should you have to be super grateful because other peoples' husbands don't cook at all?

I agree with handbagcrab and chubfuddler, it's an indulgence which is actually a bit selfish when people are relying on you to get to done fast.

I would do what Hecate suggests and say, 'it's a good job you're starting at time X as we need dinner by Y'. That sets a timescale and something to measure him by without being too overt.

And that long for risotto? It should take 30 mins max.

Please don't show him AIBU, or else he might get ideas about cooking a placenta for his next master piece.

My entire family is like your dh. We all love cooking from scratch while listening to music in the kitchen...often with impromptu interruptions of dancing and silliness. However, we can also whip up something quickly. If someone needs to take meds, toast would be made, regardless of "dinner being ready soon". You shouldn't have to wait for pain medication.
Hope you feel better soon.

You are VERY lucky - mine doesn't know where the kitchen is.

It must be frustrating though, what about a list of 'quick' weekday menus devised by you, then at the weekend he fafs about?

Part of the task of cooking is getting the meal ready at a time people want and need to eat. If he did the laundry but took Three days washing everything by hand when the kids had run out of uniform and the washing machine was working fine, that would not be functional assistance.

OP, YANBU.

TheDoctrineOfSnatch

Part of the task of cooking is getting the meal ready at a time people want and need to eat. If he did the laundry but took Three days washing everything by hand when the kids had run out of uniform and the washing machine was working fine, that would not be functional assistance.

OP, YANBU.

Did you read the bit about him having already done all the stuff around the house and picked the kids up etc etc? It's not like he's rolled in at 7pm after 2 hours in the pub.

I get the feeling that if a MN poster wrote "My husband walks on water" the Collective Crowd would post "That's only because he can't fly, the bastard. You should leave him."

All the more reason to cook something quick and simple.

Making a performance art of everyday functions does not make someone the messiah. It makes them a pain in the arse.

Bollocks flat pack, I'd say the same if OP was in a relationship with a woman.

Had friends staying once and the man in the couple made lunch for everyone one afternoon - sensibly chose to knock up some pasta.

But, trashed entire kitchen, used loads of pans, took fecking ages and then hadn't made enough. There were three adults and four hungry children to be cooked for - I think he had used about 200g of pasta.

He then went upstairs for a nap and left trashed kitchen and hungry children for the womenfolk to deal with. I boiled them eggs in the only clean pan left in the kitchen.

Tip for you annoying man - when you make pasta sauce you can fry the ingrediants off in the same pan, together, at the same time.

Anonymumous - ha at sugesting a starter! you have neve rmet one of these men have you...

Oh dear, I am a bit like this

When we were first married DH got awful headaches for about a month. We eventually figured out that they were a withdrawal symptom from salt - he was used to lots of salt bring used in cooking and then salt at the table, whereas I never add salt to anything and didn't put salt & pepper on the table.

One evening early in our married life he came home, saw I was making a curry (very nice it was too...) from scratch, threw himself down on the sofa and wailed that all he wanted was smiley faces, fish fingers and beans :o I informed him that I don't do beige.

Oh, and I almost always cook but on the rare occasion that DH does it we have heated-up pizza or cheese on toast In our first year of marriage he really pushed the boat out and made cottage pie for a 'romantic meal'. Last year when I was having a major operation I spent a whole day batch-cooking tasty freezer meals with 'put in the oven at 200C for 45 minutes' written on the container lids. When I got home from hospital they were untouched and our bin was full of Dominos boxes

what about a list of 'quick' weekday menus devised by you, then at the weekend he fafs about?- I am not actually allowed an awful lot of input when he cooks. If he cooks, he choses. most of the time anyway, we do have a chat about it, but ultimately, if I were to give him a list of things to cook, he would go 'ha! don't think so we are having curry made from scratch tonight!'

flatpack because he did all those things, that is exactly why he did not have time to cook a big flash meal. We would have all been happy with beans on toast (to which he would have added some worcester sauce, bit more seasoning, separated it into two, and put tabasco or some-such in ours, made a pot of fresh coffee, fried up some chorizo...)

I feel smug here. I had some women to a ladies' lunch and, on arrival, they saw that I was not cooking or working in the kitchen (the door to the kitchen was closed). One asked who was cooking so I said I have 'staff'. they thought I meant that I had hired someone. I fetched each course in from the kitchen and we had home made sorbet between each course. I will never forget the dessert of chocolate baskets with syllabub in them and nor do they! I loved their faces when my dear H emerged from the kitchen!

My ex-h was a good, if totally inflexible cook. Unfortunately, I came to realise that his inability to prepare a tasty meal without hours of preparation (and a kitchen that looked like a small but fiercely damaging war had just been fought in it) had an element of control to it. His food was very good but we had small children who simply couldn't wait for hours and hours for one of his masterpieces to arrive. There would then be "humphing" and accusations of ingratitude when ds1 and 2 were too tired to eat and had gone beyond wanting overly creative food.

I wish I knew what the solution was although I did actually leave the bastard in the end. But ex-h did buggerall else around the house so I didn't have the luxury of being able to set the grief of his culinary efforts off against a more general helpfulness.

I suspect you need to sit your dh down and say that actually, while his food is excellent, there needs to be some sort of compromise (or at least a realisation that simple is what is needed) when everyone just wants to eat, not be treated to a masterpiece.

I think YAmostly NBU, tbh. I am lucky that DH can cook pretty quickly - he makes a godawful mess but he has to take it in turns to clear up as well so that's ok

He was whinging his head off this evening because I cooked risotto and it wasn't ready until 6:32, FFS!! Whinge whinge, "I'm starving", moan drone.

But - as I say - he usually cooks pretty fast unless it's a curry, which we don't have often because I'm not a fan - but he has been known to "forget" I'm supposed to be going out and not have dinner ready until about 10mins until I'm due to leave , which is infuriating.

I feel for you - when the DC are kicking off and you're starving, then you want something fairly quickly - doesn't have to be cordon bleu.