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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Is he doing this deliberately?

226 replies

Wuldric · 23/10/2013 00:54

I asked DH to cook Sunday lunch this weekend. He blanched, but when I pointed out that the DCs were doing breakfasts, I had done Friday evening, Saturday lunch and evening, and Sunday evening, he manned up.

It was a roast. What could be easier? It's all peeling and chopping. So this is what happened.

Roast lamb - I would have cooked this with slivers of garlic, plenty of rosemary, salt, black pepper and red wine, and served it pink and juicy and delicious. We got dry and overcooked lamb. No extras. You try overcooking lamb until it is dry. It is not good. In fact it is pretty hard to overcook lamb until it is inedible. DH, however, succeeded.

Roast potatoes - Roasties are simples. You boil some potatoes, drain and slather them in goose fat (we have jars of the stuff) and salt and black pepper. Never leave them in for longer than an hour. DH presented us with roasties that had been carbonised. I have never tasted such things. Imagine something black on the outside, and the inside had shrivelled and detached from the outside. Little buttons of burned stuff.

Gravy - he presented us with bisto granules. I have binned this stuff since I saw it creeping into the cupboard. They are nonsense. Nasty and artificial and somewhat sinister. And lumpy.

Vegetables - I don't even want to tell you about the vegetable abuse. You would call vegetable social services. In any event, they were so soggy that they were almost liquified. You try presenting liquified carrots and parsnips. It takes a real man to liquify a parsnip without electrical assistance.

Yorkshire puddings - purists amongst you will have noticed that the roast in question was lamb. Yorkshire puddings are served with beef. DH is from Yorkshire therefore feels that no meal is complete without a Yorkshire Pudding. Despite his undoubted Yorkshire heritage, DH managed to serve black nuggets. Black nuggets are never ever going to catch on. I understand now why the smoke alarm kept going off repeatedly.

He is doing this deliberately, isn't he?

OP posts:
Pobblewhohasnotoes · 23/10/2013 20:18

My DH is always in charge of the roast potatoes as he's so good at getting them right. Yes, he's a man and he can cook, who'd have thought?!

I think the OP expects all things to be cooked exactly to her standards and specifications. If my DH cooks he gets on with it, I don't tell him what to put in it. Or he looks at a recipe.

theoriginalandbestrookie · 23/10/2013 20:26

OP sounds somewhat fussy, particularly over the gravy part. I don't like Bisto either but I wouldn't expect someone who doesn't do much cooking to know how to make a proper gravy.

I know DH can't cook - I try to keep him out of the kitchen since the time he tried to offer me a stir fry made with stewing steak Hmm. He doesn't do it on purpose - he once did roast lamb, that was literally him chucking the lamb in a roasting dish in the oven, amazingly it turned out ok.
He does a curry occasionally but honestly I'd rather he didn't. What he makes is usually ok, but I have to ooh and aah over it as if I didn't cook all the other evenings/lunches/pack lunches.

I find the timings tricky with roasts - I end up with cold stuff that I try to disguise with hot plates and boiling gravy.

Strumpetron · 23/10/2013 20:29

Least he bloody tried.

Greendove · 23/10/2013 21:24

OP, this thread made me buy lamb today. And garlic. And rosemary, parsnips and carrots. Roll on Sunday...

BrianTheMole · 23/10/2013 21:32

I'd leave the bastard op. Useless bastard Wink
Or buy him a cookery course for christmas and make him do sunday lunch every week until its perfect Grin

Wuldric · 23/10/2013 21:44

Sorry late back to the thread - work again! It does interfere with things.

When I walked back in, the smoke alarm was going off and DD was flapping at it with a teatowel cursing it for having been 'going off all morning'

DH is the least lazy person I know. He is just not lazy - too much the other way if anything. He has cooked roasts before. Probably not that often. If I think about it probably only around 4/5 times a year.

I did honestly wonder if he had done it deliberately. Every component went badly wrong and all overcooked. He's never made a bad Yorkshire pud in his life before (and he does all the Yorkshire puds going around here). I think he was grumpy at being asked to cook, when I normally do around 80%+ of the cooking and so it was a bit of a 'can't be arsed to do it properly' routine.

Although this solution - she is a diva and he is an idiot and they deserve each other is very likely also true :)

OP posts:
YouTheCat · 23/10/2013 22:27

Wuldric Grin

Bogeyface · 23/10/2013 23:57

Glad I helped! :o :o

TheHeadlessLadyofCannock · 24/10/2013 11:44

Boney, I don't know what you mean, sorry.

Thumbfuckerwitch · 24/10/2013 14:29

TheHeadless, if you're asking Bogeyface what her last comment meant, she's referring to this from the OP:
"Although this solution - she is a diva and he is an idiot and they deserve each other is very likely also true Smile" as this is what Bogey said about them.

TheHeadlessLadyofCannock · 24/10/2013 14:47

No, sorry, Thumb, I meant this, addressed to me:

'TheHeadlessLadyofCannock

"the poor menz"

Just lost any credibility for me.'

UncleT · 24/10/2013 14:48

I also vote for giving him a proper roast dinner lesson, so that any repetition of this disaster can be avoided. Weighing up the evidence, I would guess that it was about 50% incompetence with 50% 'can't be arsed' factor. By giving him a proper course in the preparation of a roast dinner, the incompetence can be removed entirely from the equation in future.

You are being slightly unreasonable to expect it to be up to your standards (you write as though you weren't really expecting it to be), but I do entirely agree that he has reached new levels of meat and vegetable abuse here.

YouTheCat · 24/10/2013 14:49

Why? Op has said he has managed to cook plenty of roast dinners before. She hasn't complained about them.

I suspect he got distracted.

UncleT · 24/10/2013 14:58

Ah, mea culpa - hadn't spotted any reports of previous roast dinners. If that's the case then fair enough, probably did it on purpose. Last comment duly withdrawn!

Thumbfuckerwitch · 24/10/2013 15:22

Ah no worries, TheHeadless! Shouldn't stick my beak in really Halloween Grin

TheHeadlessLadyofCannock · 24/10/2013 16:23

Stick your beak in any time, Thumb!

I still haven't got an answer... I don't know if I've pissed off Boney or what.

BoneyBackJefferson · 24/10/2013 19:58

headless

Not pissed off, IMO its a derogatory term used often to stifle debate and opinion.

TheGhostofAmandaClarke · 24/10/2013 20:23

You might be a bit U. (apart from the part about yorkshires, which obviously should only ever be served with beef Halloween Grin
It was all over cooked. Easily done Halloween Blush
Here DH does most of the cooking. He would say that a roast was easy but I am out of practice since marrying Gordon fucking Ramsey and I could easily screw up a "simple" roast.

TheHeadlessLadyofCannock · 24/10/2013 22:15

Boney, sorry, I still don't think I get what you mean or if you and I are disagreeing Smile. I meant that the phrase 'the poor menz' made me laugh; not sure why, it just tickled me.

I'm not clear on what you're referring to as 'a derogatory term used often to stifle debate and opinion.' Are you saying 'the poor menz' is that? If so then I don't think the poster who used it meant it like that.

Sorry, this is all very dull (and I think I'm hijacking a bit) but I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes!

BoneyBackJefferson · 25/10/2013 06:29

Headless

'menz' is used to (IMO) to undermine a posters opinion on something when they are debating that a man hasn't done anything wrong.

In this case that he didn't spoil the meal deliberately. It tends to run along side or just before the appearance of the nastier term 'handmaiden', which would be someone who will defend the 'menz' at any cost.

but I should apologise to you as it wasn't you that used the term in the fist place. sorry.

Yamyoid · 25/10/2013 06:41

I'd rather cook a roast than wash up after one. Especially a burnt one.

TheHeadlessLadyofCannock · 25/10/2013 13:59

I see! No worries about apologising. I didn't think you thought it was me who used the term anyway.

Although I still find 'the menz' (with or without the 'poor') amusing. It's just a funny phrase –or it is to me, anyway. Smile

Mim78 · 25/10/2013 14:10

I think you have to let him practice.

This is the same whether he was doing it deliberately or not! So really you don't have to worry about this question.

Kids will probably eat it even if quality is not that good so probably doesn't matter if he messes it up the first few times.

You probably can mess up a roast without doing it deliberately.

If he is not used to cooking then it is a bit mean to criticise. He could have just done fish fingers and chips if he wasn't going to make any effort. However, you could probably give some subtle hints as to how he could make it even better next time!

I think question you have to ask yourself is whether you were looking for a break from the cooking or a fabulous meal!

Wuxiapian · 25/10/2013 16:05

Well, if "he can cook really well", Wuldric, then, yes, it may have been deliberate.

sashh · 25/10/2013 16:19

The Yorkshire puddings is the give away.

In order to maintain your Yorkshire identity and passport you have to prove you can make these with no measuring.

I think he needs much much more practice.

I think you also need to introduce him to the slow cooker and its uses for roasting lamb.

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