'I can't even cook cheese on toast'

[NaughtyLittlePassport]

Prepared to be told IABU.
Having coffee with a relatively new friend, I said something about making Christmas dinner, she then said that she 'couldn't even make cheese on toast'. I was visibly gobsmacked and as it turns out she really can't cook anything!
She was really offended that I was so surprised, and told me she'd always been too busy to learn. I've offered to help her with some basics but she's ignored my message and cancelled our DS's playing together
To not drip feed I was really shocked, going 'what not even. ....' and questioning what her kids eat probably a bit too much.
But really, wouldn't you be shocked if a 40 year old couldn't cook anything at all?

I think Ginger's point is entirely valid. There is a big difference between preparing a meal and providing a meal. Like I've said before, as long as kids have a balanced, varied diet and are getting the nutrients they need, it doesn't need to be cooked if you can't cook. Looking down your nose at someone and sneering at them isn't going to help is it?

That is not a balanced diet (which I think you agree with).

It's not a diet at all. It's a meal. A balanced diet is not one meal.

(which I think you agree with)

Aw, trying mindreading now? Stick to cooking. Trust me on this. I don't agree with you at all.

I can cook very well but you can cope without doing it if you have the money to spend on ready meals such as these NavyandWhite www.cookfood.net/

The list of foods the woman prepares (not cooks, because she can't) does not form enough options to feed her kid a balanced diet.

Even if it is sometimes topped up with microwavable food her partner leaves. Sometimes, not, daily, not regularly, sometimes. Meaning "occasionally, or from time to time"

limitedperiodonly Cook claimed on their kids meals last year that they contained seven portions of fruit and veg - you couldn't even fit seven separate pieces of fruit and veg in the blood box and that was meant to serve two kids.

*Ok so as long as they get something to eat every day that's fine?

McDonald's for dinner every day then? Crap ready meal is ok every day? No it's not*

Are you reading a different thread? Because nobody said that.

Why did you feel the need to offer her cookery lessons, op? Very patronising.

Ugh bold fail.

I know a good friend's partner who can't cook at all. Thinking back to when we first met, I reacted in a similar way to OP. But, that was before she had kids, I kind of assumed she'd make an effort once children car along. Now that she has children, she still refuses to try to make ANYTHING. Her partner is under pressure to make everything down to a ham sandwich for the kids, which puts a lot of pressure on her DP and the point blank refusal to even begin to learn is a huge bone of contention. If the DP doesn't cook then the tiny kids are eating grotty take away, so they feel they have no choice. That, to me, is bloody awful. I am definitely judging her for it, not for being less than a brilliant cook, but for not bothering to even take classes or have someone show her. I feel sorry for the kids eating crap so often too. It's a genuine question, what DO your children eat if you can't cook?!

Yes I think you were rude OP.

But everyone should be able to cook basic stuff. Sadly that is not the case. Home economics classes when I was young, made sure everyone had basic cooking skills. Sadly they were replaces by food technology.

My last dp can't cook, never bothered me in the slightest, he lived for the micro and porridge.
His view he has a busy life and food is for survival and not much more, he did enjoy my cooking although I can't boil an egg right.

I said nothing about McDonald's.

Let's be realistic. MN knows sweet fuck all about what these children regularly eat. You know ONE MEAL. That's it.

Let's look at all those waffling on about sending in packed lunches for their children and enraged because the teacher took out a biscuit or a homemade cake from the lunch. The first things people are spouting off on those threads are "FFS how can the school judge whether or not a child is eating a healthy diet based on one packed lunch? That might have been the only sweet that child had all week!"

Apparently it's not okay for the school to judge based on one meal, but it's okay for MN posters?

I stand by my earlier comment:
MN - land of the blinkered people, where condescension is a way of life.

If she cannot provide a simple meal for her children - problem. If she cannot cook a simple meal, but is able to provide one - no problem whatsoever

McDonald's isn't a simple meal, it's junk food. There's a difference.

But not everyone can afford those types of ready meals limited.

But some people can NavyandWhite. I'd never heard about them before another poster linked to them.

Personally, I agree with hoops that they aren't very good nutritionally. I also think they're a waste of money.

But that's what some people like to do and because they're middle class, no one complains about it, do they?

If we're talking home cooked meals, my DS(11) is a bloody nightmare. He'll eat macaroni and spaghetti bolognese and that's about it. But he'll beg for M&S ready made spag bol (the little kids one). My own pasta sauce is pretty much the same as the tesco one he "likes", but does he finish it? Nope. Its a waste of time trying anything new. He turns his nose up at it, but moans about eating the same stuff over and over. It's soul destroying.

Brasty I agree that food tech is a waste of time but I was at school in the 70s and 'home economics' was crap even then. I made rock buns and a salad and various inedible pasta things. Total shite. And my mum is a terrible cook so anything I learned from her I quickly discarded.
I eventually started learning to cook when I was about 20 and (through very convoluted paths) got a free, signed copy of Delia Smiths 'One is Fun'. It was a revelation, easy and quick and so, so delicious. And all I had to do was follow her very clear instructions.

I stand by my earlier statement that if you can read, you can cook (disabilities excepted). Of course not everyone will be a great cook, but anyone of normal motility and intelligence is capable of cooking delicious basic food - if they want to.

Tomorrow will be: weetabix. Chicken mayo sandwich, apple, juice, oat and carrot bar. Quiche, sausages, breadsticks, houmous, cucumber. Yogurt/fruit pots.

Next day: same breakfast and lunch. Salmon fish cakes and tinned sweet corn. Yogurt/raisin & oat cookie

Still no cooking required and just standard meals for my children day in day out.

I don't cook because I hate it and my husband enjoys it. However, I am quite capable of cooking and if I was a single parent I would provide my child with adequate, nutritious food. There is no excuse if nobody is cooking for her children. She should be able to grill a piece of bread with cheese on it unless there is something seriously wrong, so this must have been a joke- mustn't it?

I'm sure that there are quite a few parents that can cook and yet they do not give their children a balanced diet. Whether or not they can cook is not necessarily an indicator of how balanced their diet is.

I'd be surprised to meet a parent (of either sex) who couldn't at least cook a few basic meals, even if they didn't enjoy cooking. And it's not too hard to follow a recipe book. I remember my mum making me cook dinner sometimes before I went to university, with cries of "independence training!"

One friend I met through work never cooked; she didn't even own any pots or pans, but instead lived on ready meals, which must have been quite expensive and probably not that healthy. Her parents never taught her to cook before she left home, and she didn't see the point in cooking for just for herself. For some other people I've met I think it was almost seen as a badge of pride to be far too busy working long hours to have time to cook. (Although you could presumably bulk cook at the weekends).