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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:
MariaNovella · 09/05/2019 10:46

Pesto has no place in risotto IME and IMO.

StarLine · 09/05/2019 10:54

Wow. Imagine a parallel universe where all three of you had a good giggle at the risotto screw up while you waited for some pizza or sometihng to be delivered.

DontVisitMe · 09/05/2019 10:59

Jesus christ couldn't you have just gone to the chippy?

EggAndButter · 09/05/2019 11:08

never but she did!
She told him about others possibilities re the pesto (that he clearly want as the DH waited for the dd to be back and do it for him)

Or do you mean helping as ‘doing it for him’ as the dd did when she was back home?

Tbh the fact the audit dd automatically started to do the pesto for her dad AND the fact the DH just waited for her to be back and did not listen (again) to the OP’s proposals makes me wonder if this isn't a well known scenario in the house where everyone is supposed to come and ‘help’ - aka rescue him and do it for him- if th8ngs don’t go as planned.

Which fully grown adult has a tantrum over a risotto anyway??

AryaStarkWolf · 09/05/2019 11:11

Jesus christ couldn't you have just gone to the chippy?

Grin
TeeBee · 09/05/2019 11:14

YABU...firstly for wanting risotto with salad. Wrong.
YABU for not being patient with someone trying to master a new skill, especially someone you're supposed to love. If I was trying to do something for my partner and he was that impatient with me, I'd be severely pissed off. Adult or otherwise, he's trying to learn something new. If you'd had just guided him through it, the whole process would have been more pleasant all round. Who wants to live with so much animosity and impatience?

DarlingNikita · 09/05/2019 11:17

InfiniteSheldon, I stand corrected about the timing of the salad/pesto.

BUT why on earth should she have to make them when the DH was supposedly making dinner? If she'd been doing the risotto would she have 'needed' the DH to do the salad/pesto for her? I doubt it.

1tisILeClerc · 09/05/2019 11:18

I am only reading this thread (in dismay) as I am planning a risotto for tonight.
Apart from heating the bacon and onions first, the rest gets chucked in and cooked until ready (a good couple of hours in a slow cooker).
Is it as risotto, probably not in the classic sense. Will it be tasty and nutritious, yes.
I used to get a bit 'peeved' by preparing a meal for my OH for a projected arrival time who would then turn up an hour late, so 'spoiling' the freshness of the meal.

Waspnest · 09/05/2019 11:18

OP I'd have been annoyed as well. He could have surprised you by cooking a simple meal within his capabilities. Instead he was arrogant enough to think that risotto can't be that hard and so he ignored your comment and went ahead anyway.

Presumably if you'd come home and he'd said 'I'm sorry, I've been a twat, I didn't realise how tricky risotto is, I'll do us an omelette/get a takeaway' you wouldn't have been so annoyed. To blame something/everyone else and make his problem everyone else's is just pathetic.

And what is it about AIBU today, I've seen some really nasty posts across various threads this morning. AIBU is (or used to be) absolutely for the relatively trivial things in life.

DarlingNikita · 09/05/2019 11:19

YABU for not being patient with someone trying to master a new skill

He wasn't learning to fly a fighter plane! He just had to follow a recipe method.

If you'd had just guided him through it, the whole process would have been more pleasant all round. She wasn't there to 'guide him'. And, again, it's not brain surgery; it's a recipe).

LillithsFamiliar · 09/05/2019 11:26

I think you're right that it's entirely about his motivation. As a stranger on the internet, I think he was trying to make a meal and over-estimated how complicated the risotto was. But you'll know better than us.

sweeneytoddsrazor · 09/05/2019 11:31

Well next time a woman on this site posts her husband has complained about a meal can we tell her she should stick to something simple or do something that pleases him rather than the usual ltb or tell him to cook his own. He tried he messed up he will do better next time. End of story get over it

StillCoughingandLaughing · 09/05/2019 11:41

Is the right answer a)Tell them I'll be there in half an hour. (NB. 's a twenty minute drive.) or b) Well, I need to do some home-made pesto and make a salad for my retired husband first?

C) Go to work and, when your husband hasn’t made the pesto or the salad, tell him to open a jar like anyone else and say ‘Where’s the salad?’ It’s not like it’s redecorating the Sistine Chapel - you could wait two minutes for the risotto while he chops some tomatoes. You make it sound like the lack of salad was an insurmountable problem.

LizB62A · 09/05/2019 11:47

He's retired - enrol him on a cooking class so that he can be useful and not need handholding to make dinner....

FireflyEden · 09/05/2019 11:49

Arguing over Risotto?

PinkHeartLovesCake · 09/05/2019 11:51

Thing is most of us have made a meal that didn’t work out, well I have and so has dh. It’s not a huge deal, neither of us are still moaning about it the next day.

What’s with the salad? If you wanted it so badly you could of quickly chopped some from the fridge. Ok you’ve been to work but it’s chopping salad not running a marathon.

Pesto, well it has no place with risotto. There is always the opening a jar option.......

Massive drama over nothing really 🤷🏻‍♀️

SarahAndQuack · 09/05/2019 12:15

I am struggling to see how 'having a good giggle' with a man who's having a meltdown is going to work?

Ok, the OP might have come in to her husband in mid-tantrum and laughed at him, or made a joke to get him out of the tantrum, but TBH, if my partner were in meltdown I'd be much more likely to do as she did - eat it quietly, then talk about it when he'd calmed down.

How many people really find you get a good reaction trying to 'giggle' with someone who's had a completely OTT loss of control?

PlinkPlink · 09/05/2019 12:36

Because it's a fucking risotto! A meltdown is not an appropriate way to respond to a meal going wrong. I strongly suspect that was a bit of hyperbole from OP.

It doesn't fucking matter. A risotto doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. And I'm sorry if you feel you cant have a giggle with your other half about things that go wrong... but that's how my relationship works. Rather than get het up about something so fucking unimportant in life, we find it is better to laugh together, say 'oh well' and have a fucking plate of beans on toast instead.

For gods sake 🙄🙄🙄 lighten up

SomewhereInbetween1 · 09/05/2019 12:43

Are you always this serious?

SarahAndQuack · 09/05/2019 13:01

Well, at least we can agree there! A meltdown is not an appropriate way to respond.

In the absence of any reason to assume the OP is lying, I think she probably isn't making that bit up.

I get why you think she is, but realistically, I doubt she'd bother posting if her relationship were full of happy giggles, eh?

YesimstillwatchingNetflix · 09/05/2019 13:33

I'm glad I'm not married to you OP.

I've made my husband lots of flavourless/undercooked/starchy dinners while trying to impress him with a new recipe. Once I tried to make gnocchi but was so distracted chatting to him that I ended up serving him balls of almost raw potato Blush. He told me it was delicious, we laughed about it and had a great night (I think we turned the garlic bread into bruschetta so we had something edible) He certainly didn't pout, complain and bring it up the next day.

You sound a bit bit picky and mean. Unless this is tapping into some other marital issue (do you resent working while he is retired for instance?) then YABU.

Get a takeaway menu and keep it on hand for next time.

bellinisurge · 09/05/2019 13:48

He had a meltdown. Over cooking. Not acceptable behaviour .
Op, it is not your job to manage his meltdown. Yes, I am sure there are things you could have done differently or said differently but the meltdown is not on.

Original poster
marvik · 09/05/2019 13:48

Oh, he'd just have had another much bigger meltdown if I'd ordered a takeaway....

I had to sit and eat some of the stuff.

I've had years of working part-time when he was working full-time. He'd come back hungry and tired - as I did yesterday. And I would have a hot edible meal on the table for him. I didn't mind doing this. It was part of the deal between us.

What I do mind is that now the he is retired and I am working, the deal doesn't apply in reverse.

He isn't good at managing time and will often make new or not straightforward things with too little time to spare. So I get home and find him flapping about, and it gets monotonous having to sort him out. Or the new recipe rather too often proves to be inedible, because he's ultra-literal about things like cooking and preparation times - and not good at tasting and adjusting things as he goes along. He'll put in way too much oil so things are greasy - or else serve things burnt or semi-raw. He's also become rather slow, although fit and well, so that a recipe that would take me 30 minutes will take him an hour.

We cooked dinner for some friends recently and I needed an hour to make two of the courses, whereas he needed two hours to do the other course.

I don't want to take over and do everything. I just wish he'd be a bit better organised and more realistic on the days when I'm busy and working away from home - so I didn't keep having to deal with this sort of scene on my return. I would then feel I was living with an adult.

OP posts:
Singlenotsingle · 09/05/2019 13:56

I can understand that you're probably an experienced cook and make everything from scratch. But if he's doing the cooking, can't he do easy peasy stuff? Sausages with baked potato and baked beans? Spag bol? Grilled salmon and salad? Pork chop grilled with onions, tomatoes, peas and mushrooms?

Clutterbugsmum · 09/05/2019 14:27

I would expect anyone who is retired or any adult in fact to be able to read a recipe and know it is too complicated for them.

I'm sure marvik would enjoy her dinner more if she had home from work and her DH had said he had made something he can make and left the risotto bits for another time for OP to make.