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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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:

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 09:50

And why should the OP so patronizingly humour her great big baby of a DH, RockOn, as in your scenario?

AryaStarkWolf · 09/05/2019 09:50

Yeah sorry OP I agree with you DH, YWBU, he was trying to help but it went wrong, give the guy a break, it's just rice ffs

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 09:50

Raptor - there is no frying!!! How many times do I have to repeat this!

downcasteyes · 09/05/2019 09:51

Sounds like he needs to attend some cooking lessons during his retirement!

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 09:51

Yes, downcasteyes!

BastardGoDarkly · 09/05/2019 09:53

MariaNovello I don't even know where to begin with your post 🤦‍♀️

Foxmuffin · 09/05/2019 09:53

I’d have been secretly annoyed but outwardly would have thanked DH for his efforts.

Original poster

marvik · 09/05/2019 09:53

It was rather a waste of decent chicken stock which won't reappear till next time we buy a chicken. ( I'd spent a while making it.) He'd diluted it heavily with water and vegetable stock powder so last night's dish was lacking in flavour as well as rather hard to digest. There are large amounts of risotto left over,

I think the phase he'd messed up on was the toasting of the rice grains. Described here.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/may/06/how-to-make-perfect-risotto

It's sometimes a little hard to know whether my husband is trying hard to be helpful or trying to be helpless At times like this I think it is entirely possibly that while firmly believing he's doing the former, he is actually doing the latter.

So it is the question of his motivations that troubles me as much as the issue of a spoiled meal.

OP posts:

BastardGoDarkly · 09/05/2019 09:55

It was pretty to bring it up again this morning OP.

I think he probably got the point yesterday.

I do understand your annoyance, but I think you laid it on a but thick tbh.

Hutchismo · 09/05/2019 09:55

Is this building up to the big gender switcheroo where we find out that it was a bloke having a go because his dinner wasn't on the table when he got home from work?

MoltenLasagne · 09/05/2019 09:56

In Rock0n’s scenario the wife has basically made the dinner, notice how everything except laying the table is the wife doing something? And yet that’s seen as the quick fix - women, don’t stress about your husband being incompetent and making things your problem, just do all the work in the first place! Simple!

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 09:57

Foxmuffin - why would you patronize your DH like that?

whatsthecomingoverthehill · 09/05/2019 09:57

It's stressful when cooking goes wrong. But in questioning his motivation you are seriously thinking that he deliberately messed it up? I mean I guess it's possible, but it's seriously fucked up if so.

MoltenLasagne · 09/05/2019 09:58

OP I think the phrase you’re looking for is strategic incompetence.

There are men who, when expected to contribute, will purposefully cock up so they don’t get asked again. Only you know whether your husband is in this category.

Lovemusic33 · 09/05/2019 09:59

Do people make pesto? thought it came in jars from Tesco.

GeorgeTheBleeder · 09/05/2019 09:59

Forget the risotto - I’m desperate to know the specific reasons you had for accepting the badly paid work! (Though I’m guessing you were simply hoping to hook in a new client. That or a flying visit to your lover on the other side of town ...)

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 10:00

When my DH/DSS fucked up and melted the inside of the fridge, I didn’t pussy foot about preserving their fragile male egos. It was actually a wonderful opportunity to make DH feel the pain of his domestic incompetence.

CherryPavlova · 09/05/2019 10:00

I’m amazed that there can be so much angst about a risotto. It’s very easy, almost impossible to get wrong and can very simply be rescued. It’s rice, for goodness sake.
People make mountains out of how challenging it is are being disingenuous. You are being simply ridiculous. He tried but didn’t quite cook the rice for long enough. You could easily have rectified that with a slug of wine and a few more minutes plus a spoon of mascarpone, if you wanted it creamier. A salad would have taken two minutes to put together - even if you make your own dressing.

Buy him cookery lessons for his birthday or invest in Hello Fresh for three nights a week to take the pressure off yourself and give him idiot proof recipes.

BlackPrism · 09/05/2019 10:03

Don't beat him with it - he probably feels a bit of a spare part now that he's retired and just wanted to do his bit. Hardly like he planned it to go wrong is it? Not everyone's a chef.

I'd say, 'thanks for trying babe, but why don't I get you some easier cookbooks and you can take a punt at them next time and work your way up?'

MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 10:03

and give him idiot proof recipes.

This is precisely why the OP is so annoyed. It’s not the risotto per se, it’s the fact that it has highlighted her DH’s idiocy. And now you are suggesting the OP needs to manage an idiot...

Catchingbentcoppers · 09/05/2019 10:04

Well, next time DH fucks up, which he will, I'll be sure to make him feel like shit about it rather than talk to him like a reasonable adult. Never mind that he's been perfectly reasonable on the (many) occasions I've fucked up myself. Still, I know I am in the minority, as women don't usually make mistakes, only men. We must never forget this.

MadAboutWands · 09/05/2019 10:05

Ok so someone starts to make a dish that IS complicated because they want to be nice and do something nice FOR someone else.

Recipe doesn’t go to plan, it’s harder to do that that person thought it would be.

What is the right answer?

Get totally overwhelmed, blamed everyone and everything and then expect the person you wanted to surprise to save it all?
Realise that you’ve messed up, clean the kitchen and start something different as an easy quick meal
expect that the person you wanted to help and support will KNOW you are going to do said dish (eve if they explicitly said not to bother) and will prepare all the stuff you need for you, manage to make a dish that was uneatable as something that is, all that because you made an effort after all so everyone should fall over themselves, thank you profusely and sort the mess out.

The only acceptable answer is 2).
That’s what women do on a daily basis and I’m sur why men shouldn’t be expected to do it too.
Yes he tried. Yes his intentions were good in the first place.
But he also started something that was way beyond his cooking abilities and should have realised that. And when realised things were going badly, he shouod have been able to accept that 1) he messed it up and 2) a solution was needed.
I mean we are talking about a grown man, someone who has worked all their life. Surely he has been in the situation before when things went wrong and he has to find a solution to solve the problem? And all that WITHOUT relying on someone else?

Last thing, he was NOT doing a favour to the OP, nor was he doing something extraordinary. It was nice for him to do the cooking but also totally normal do him to take that responsibility on. After all cooking is as much his job than it is the OP.
There is no reason why the OP should be oh so happy he tried. This guy never did anything amazing there. Just a very normal thing. Cooking dinner.
I so annoyed at the ‘oh poor man who wanted to do something nice brigade’. I’m pretty sure the Op’s DH wouod NOT have helped and started to prepare a pesto or out together a salad if SHE had been in a muddle with the recipe. He wouod have expected her to get on with it as she was the one in charge!

YemenRoadYemen · 09/05/2019 10:05

Oh God, I find threads like this infuriating.

Not the OP, but the Stepford wife responses. Jeez - he needs encouraging??

Absolutely agree with @MariaNovella

Mumofone1593 · 09/05/2019 10:07

There's a difference between being a push over and doing it all (work and housework) compared to your husband asking for help with dinner and you refusing becuase you have been at work?

Imagine the thread... 'my husband came home after a day at work when I was making a risotto, I asked for help with the pesto and he said no becuase he had been at work and I should make something else, my daughter then made it as best as she could and my husband shouted at me as he didn't like how it was made and said I made it wrong on purpose as I don't like him working'.

It seems like you are blinded to his point of view. Also your point saying that your two choices were to say no or have told your work you would be late as making pesto makes no sense as you originally said that when you got home from work he asked you to make it? So why would it have made you 20 minutes late for a shift you have already Finnished?

AryaStarkWolf · 09/05/2019 10:07

So it is the question of his motivations that troubles me as much as the issue of a spoiled meal.

Well none of us know him. But it must be more than just the risotto that's brought you to that conclusion?

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