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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

...about the ****ing risotto?

182 replies

marvik · 09/05/2019 09:02

At the moment the household consists of 21 year old daughter (temping), self (freelancing from home and elsewhere) plus husband (retired)

Yesterday I was working at home and had planned to make a slightly fiddly risotto and pesto dish in the evening - to be served some salad. I'd got some stock out of the freezer in advance. My husband was around, my daughter had gone to her job, when a text came in asking if I could do a small piece of work elsewhere in the city and if so how quickly could I get there. Though it was badly paid I had reasons for wanting to say yes. So I told my husband I was off, flung crisps and a cereal bar in my bag and said I'd do the risotto the following day.

I got back after a difficult day to find my husband having a meltdown, going on and on about how the recipe book lied etc etc. He'd decided to do the risotto - because 'he knew how to d it' - but it was taking longer than he thought and the rice was 'refusing to cook'. (Suspect he hadn't fried it properly at the appropriate stage and was adding the stock cold.)

He'd thought our daughter was going to help but she wasn't back. Who was going to do the pesto? I said not me, as a) I'd been out at work and b) had advised him not to do the dish but c) suggested one or two things he could do that were quicker and easier than home-made pesto that would mean he could get the meal done.

Eventually my daughter came back and made him some pesto.

I was seriously hungry by the time we sat down to a plate of undercooked starch plus my daughter's pesto. No salad - or other veg. I then had to hurry out to see friends

This morning I said I was annoyed at being asked to help/his inability to cook independently when my daughter and I had been out at work. He'd had plenty of time and I'd made it clear that I'd been happy to cook the more complicated dish when I was around. I felt that he was trying to communicate that he couldn't cope with changes of plan and wanted support at all times.

He said no, no I was quite wrong and all he'd wanted to do was make something 'really special' as a 'treat' for me when I got back - 'because I'd been working'...

I can cope with the odd cooking foul-up, but I just feel so fed up with him today.

OP posts:
Cattucino · 09/05/2019 09:19

He fucked up a recipe that was more complicated than he's used to cooking, because he was trying to do something nice.

Bloody hell, nobody starved, presumably if it had gone to plan you'd have had a nice meal waiting for you after being at work.

There are worse crimes - let it go.

BrightOink · 09/05/2019 09:19

We are on a very strict and tight budget. I buy the precise ingredients for things and use it all. Last Sunday I asked very capable DH to get the roast on whilst I was here there and everywhere with our youngest.

Got home to the kitchen being a wreck (I couldn't find the thingy), inedible roast potatoes (I must have forgotten about them) tasteless chicken (I could have sworn I flavoured it / kept an eye on it / basted it) watery gravy (if you don't like it, I can add more to thicken it?) and my favourite veg decimated (it doesn't usually do that in the oven). I could have cried as was ravenous and he had insisted on doing it and serving. He sat munching away like it was some of the finest dining we'd had.

I get it and it's so frustrating.

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 09:20

He needs encouragement.

How fucking patronizing - to both the husband and the OP.

dottiedodah · 09/05/2019 09:20

Risotto is quite a difficult dish to get right ,and requires some skill and effort.Do you think he felt a little unappreciated maybe?.Perhaps as he is at home all day, and then you come home and complain about Dinner and fly off out again?.Next time just try and do a risotto or more difficult dish at weekends?.Possibly he was looking forward to the Risotto and thought give it a go!

InfiniteSheldon · 09/05/2019 09:20

Prepping pesto and salad when you get home not a big deal. You are clearly annoyed by your dh attempt to do something nice ask yourself why. And it's very common for someone men to underestimate how hard jobs/recipes are if they are not jobs they usually do wifework Communication, appreciation and kindness would help you here not resentment and nastiness. He tried to cook you dinner knowing you'd had a hard day what a bastard.

Geminijes · 09/05/2019 09:20

A retired man attempted to cook a risotto. Failed as underestimated the difficulty of the dish. The meal was a disaster but no one died, no one went hungry. It was just one of those things...albeit, could have been avoided but no big deal. So why all the fuss? why the need to discuss it on MN?

englishdictionary · 09/05/2019 09:21

I was seriously hungry by the time we sat down to a plate of undercooked starch plus my daughter's pesto. No salad - or other veg. I then had to hurry out to see friends

Why did you not just eat something else? Is your routine normally so ridged? You could have eaten salad, it's not as if it requires much more the taking out of fridge!

If anyone messed up a meal here or didn't make the salad I would get something else, or the salad. I would probably also laugh and enjoy the rest of my day.

No wonder so many people suffer stress. This is literally a non issue. He fucked up, you had the power to stop that negatively impacting your day.

Shoxfordian · 09/05/2019 09:21

I can see both sides here. Its annoying that he decided to try to cook it when he clearly can't but you could have just laughed about it. If my dh did this then I'd tell him to stick to the day job and order in a pizza or something if it wasn't nice.

WhenISnappedAndFarted · 09/05/2019 09:22

We've all messed up recipes, it happens. I mess them up occasionally even if I've made them plenty of times before.

I understand why you were annoyed however I do think YABU. I don't know your husband however to me it does sound like he was trying to help and just got it wrong.

RaptorWhiskers · 09/05/2019 09:23

Risotto is just rice cooked in stock. It tastes exactly the same regardless of whether you fry the rice and carefully add hot stock, or just chuck the whole lot in together. It wouldn’t prevent the rice cooking because you haven’t followed that method, it would still cook even if you just bunged it all in, so no idea why OP ate hard rice.

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 09:24

Incompetent men taking uncalled for domestic initiatives required me to buy a new fridge quite recently. I didn’t consult DH or DSS (joint unwitting culprits) and spent a very large sum of money direct from DH’s account without consulting him. We now have a very large pink fridge, just to remind any man who goes near it that a female member of the household is in charge of it Grin

bumblingbovine49 · 09/05/2019 09:24

Oh my goodness. When we have cooking fails in this house ( mine usually) I am sometimes group about all the work I have put in for nothing but it usually ends up with DH and I laughing.

I can't imagine DH getting angry with me from trying a recipe and failing at delivering it. Or me with him and I am the grumpy one in our house. We might take the gentle piss out of each other for it but getting annoyed no way. Is there some thing else going on op.

Working with a retired husband can be a difficult transition, is his retirement new?

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 09:24

Risotto is just rice cooked in stock. It tastes exactly the same regardless of whether you fry the rice and carefully add hot stock, or just chuck the whole lot in together.

Anyone who believes this has never eaten risotto.

Daisydoesnt · 09/05/2019 09:25

If the rice was undercooked, you just cook it for a bit longer?!

DarlingNikita · 09/05/2019 09:25

Well, YANBU, obviously. How hard is it to understand 'I'll do the risotto the following day' and extrapolate from that that you should make something else of your choice?

And given he insisted on making the risotto, how hard is it to read and understand an instruction to 'add hot/boiling stock' (which is what every risotto recipe on earth says)?

He's either really stupid or he was (consciously or not) making you feel bad for not being there to cook.

He needs encouragement. Hmm He's not a puppy being house-trained. FFS.

You should have made the pesto/prepped the salad neither are onerous What, instead of going to work? Hmm Have a word with yourself.

SarahAndQuack · 09/05/2019 09:26

I think he sounds very childish.

Fair enough if you had said you wanted him to cook something, and he tried but couldn't manage. But you specifically said don't worry about it.

Fair enough if he'd tried, then felt mortified it hadn't worked. But it sounds as if he got stroppy because he fucked up. That is a really unappealing quality.

In the long run, I do think he needs to cook. I can't see what's complicated about risotto or pesto.

But I would have very little patience if I came home from work to someone in a strop blaming the recipe book for 'lying'. Honestly. That makes him sound like a petulant toddler.

Catchingbentcoppers · 09/05/2019 09:27

What a fuss over something so silly.

Missingstreetlife · 09/05/2019 09:27

She might not have more stock. He should have made an omelette

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 09:28

The fuss is because this anecdote is illustrative of a much bigger problem the OP has with her husband.

LeekMunchingSheepShagger · 09/05/2019 09:28

It's a risotto. Next time you make a risotto get him to do it with you so he knows for next time.

Unless there's a massive drip feed you are overreacting.

Senac32 · 09/05/2019 09:28

Evidently this is the correct way to make rissotto:

Senac32 · 09/05/2019 09:29

Evidently this is the correct way to make rissotto:

Bobbindobbin · 09/05/2019 09:29

Id have ordered pizza

InfiniteSheldon · 09/05/2019 09:30

You should have made the pesto/prepped the salad neither are onerous What, instead of going to work? hmm Have a word with yourself.

Opening post clearly implies poster had to wait for her meal I in no way suggested she shouldn't have gone to work both ways jobs done in minutes when she got home. If you struggle to make a salad Nikita have a word with yourself

Catchingbentcoppers · 09/05/2019 09:31

The fuss is because this anecdote is illustrative of a much bigger problem the OP has with her husband.

A much bigger problem? Really? Grin Where on earth are you getting that from two posts and one side of a story on the internet @MariaNovella?

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