'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 would be shocked too but W also know people who can't cook. They live off fish fingers and other frozen food/ ready meals. The oven is basically a food warmer to them. Cooking is a basic survival skill,

Actually I think cheese on toast is quite hard to get right with enough cheese to cover the toast but not too much that it drops everywhere and burns. A bit like really good poached eggs, quite hard to get perfect.

Which is why I do pan fried cheese toasties, with sliced tomatoes and a bit of chopped up onion.........in fact I may have to leave the thread and segue into the kitchen for a few minutes.

I would hope it was a joke if not a joke unless there is a disability it's just laziness to never cook anything at all and not know how to cook chees on toast

when I was at uni and flat sharing one of the girls wanted beans on toast for lunch and I was standing in the kitchen and she put 2 bits of un toasted bread on a plate beans on top and popped in the microwave and woundered why it was a soggy mess! How do you get to uni age and living away from home and not know how to do a simple beans on toast

You were rude. She knows that she can't cook and she's an adult who can source help/advice if she wants to. She doesn't.

I'm not surprised that she's ignored your message, you've made her feel like shit. You owe her an apology and not to use this thread to bash her further or bolster your own ego either.

Well put Lying

I'd have said the same as you because it is something you would think she was joking about initially - she obviously meant it or she wouldn't be ignoring you ..... that's really odd I think - my sons could cook scrambled eggs on toast at around 7 years old ... find that really strange

She didn't seem to be joking, unless she was winding me up, why be so annoyed if that's the case though?
I think part of my shock was that my DS has multiple allergies, so DH and I have to cook bloody everything from scratch. It takes up a lot of time getting a balanced diet into him

I am specifically learning to cook a different menu now that we've decided to have a baby soon

Lovely. Have a medal. You can look at it in a few years when you just gave your toddler a biscuit because they haven't eaten a bite of the last 5 meals you lovingly prepared for them!

Kids eating nutritious homemade meals is as important in my mind as them having access to clean water and medicine.

You may need to amend this when your child arrives to:

Kids having access to nutritious homemade meals is as important in my mind as them having access to clean water and medicine.

DH can't cook. It doesn't matter very often: I can cook. Before he lived with me he lived at home (MIL didn't make him learn real food) or in catered university halls. He can put things in the oven or microwave. School food tech was wasted on him.

Is the shock and horror because it's a woman who can't cook?

Hoops - I'm smiling at your post about cooking good nutritious food for children. I used to love cooking before I had DC and am (according to friends and family) a very good cook. Unfortunately, children's ideas of what constitutes enjoyable food and adults do not overlap in the slightest. I now work on the principle of "beige, covered in breadcrumbs, and try to sneak one of the three acceptable vegetables - carrots, sweetcorn or green beans - onto the plate without too much of a fuss being made." It is soul destroying. DC don't seem to have got scurvy yet, though, so hopefully they will make it through to adulthood.

Seems a bit weird she's cancelled a playdate over it. Taking her lack of prioritising time to learn to cook on her child...

I mean, really, how much time does it take to learn to bloody cook?

I would wonder how somebody of 40 can't cook a thing. As for well I'm too busy to learn well we all have busy lives but have to cook to feed out DC or whatever.
Very few people can't follow a very basic cooking book

/misses the point/ I cook all the time, and find cheese on toast very difficult to get right. I prefer to melt cheese in the microwave and spread over toast done in the toaster.

Hoops, she's cancelled the playdate because someone made her feel like shit.

Oops, cross post with lots of others. Not having a go, Hoops - more a smile of fond recollection because I remember all those good intentions only too well from before the period before I was forced to confront reality. You might pull it off - I know some parents who've managed it. They have a will of iron though, I am undoubtedly slack mummy.

I met a wealthy American couple with young kids and neither of them could or did cook. They had a 'meal service' that delivered home-cooked-type meals to their mansion house and, like lots of the other Americans we met, they ate a lot of 'take-out!'
I think the kids ate lots of frozen stuff too. I was pretty gobsmacked but also a bit envious. How many hours would such an attitude free up in my week?!?

I don't consider cheese on toast "cooking" tbh. It's like making a sandwich, essentially just assembling ingredients. The only difference with cheese on toast are the turn oven on, wait 5 mins, turn oven off steps.

Surely it's as simple as using the microwave or putting her ready made slop in the oven or whatever shite it is she's been eating for 30 years.

But why should she learn to cook if she doesn't want to? Does having a vagina mean you are obligated to cook?

I can cook basic meals I can't really cook we don't starve I'm sure your now ex friend child doesn't either you were very insulting and you offered her with your endless questions

Lying I'm not trying to sneer at her. I was just a bit shocked.
Navy 'Seriously?! What not even (a bit of a list) what do x and x eat?

'

YWBU. Yes, I'd be equally shocked, but I'd do my level best to keep my reaction to myself. I might offer to teach her some basics but would drop the subject immediately if she showed no interest. You were incredibly rude. Glad you have apologised and hope she takes it in her stride.

As she has a partner who cooks and she herself can presumably assemble moderately nutritious cold food, her kids are not necessarily being brought up on a diet of junk. I can think of plenty of healthy foods which can be served straight out of the fridge.

If you think about it, you and I and everyone else in the world probably has some particular failing which would appal others.There are all sorts of things which seem like essential life skills to me, which I cannot imagine someone going through life without being able to manage. I suppose others think the same of some things I can't do.