How oh how can I tell Mr Inferior in a kind tactful and above all EFFECTIVE way that his culinary repetoire is deeply limited? Tell me that, eh?

[motherinferior]

I fully concede that I tend to cook the same things a lot. But DP - who only learned to cook about six years ago after taking up with me, in any case - currently cooks about two things in the week. Nigel Slater's chicken supper thing (somewhat neutered by DP's preference for skinned chicken breasts) and spaghetti bolognese which he learned from his mate Tory Ben. I have sort of tried sort of tactfully (by my standards) to ask could we not have the chicken thing every time he cooks. Hence the revisitation of Tory Ben's spag bol. Oh, and sometimes, to be fair, he does do some sort of pasta sauce variant. But it's deeply limited. Especially as DP has Prejudices against various foodstuffs including risotto. And cous-cous. And given my limitations in the areas of Tact and indeed of Relationships, please can you give me some suggestions for nudging him into a wide variety of gastronomic experimentations? Because quite seriously, it is beginning to get me down.

Oh and while you're about it how can I get him to cook more of our fresh veg delivery?

Well blokes like cooking macho dishes like curry and Mexican food so maybe try suggesting those.

I've given up on the this battle and now I do ALL THE COOKING

It's GRIM and very 1950s but the final straw was when DP cooked fresh salmon covered with chicken gravy

He didn't see what was wrong with it

He never used the fresh veg either - just frozen fucking peas

Now he does all the washing up instead

Curry - especially as he, like me, is half Asian and has Standards - would involve loads of grinding spices and be faintly complicated. And in any case I cook a mean curry....

something like this:

"mr inferior (you may insert his real name here, if you prefer) I am sick to death of your boring meals. If you serve me up another one I shall throw it on the floor, stamp my feet and have a big tantrum. Please cook me something else."

well we all know that men love bbq-ing so you could make him bbq every meal.

My dh (who you know) seems to equate decent cooking with absolutely trashing the kitchen but he does get the job done!

I would just be honest and say, "I really like your chicken thingy but it would be really nice to try something else too. Could we do that one night?" or some other measly mouthed request. Hey, the end justifies the means.....

at the salmon with chicken gravy

Kama, those are very good suggestions but I'm not sure they'd work for DP.I could try some more Many Cook Books. We have lots of Slater, who is kind of DP's level of Manly (ie not very ).

does it have to be tactful?

lol @ tory ben

Dh has cook books written by his ex. Nice. Even better when his daughter buys him more of them. Thanks for that.

(I wouldn't have minded the salmon-with-chicken-gravy meal if DP had said "Shit, this tastes horrid" but he just wolfed it down. )

what about Oliver?

dh likes him

Can't you just say
oh ffs do you always have to cook the same fking thing, I'm sick of it and you NEVER use the sodding veg, why do you think we have them delivered, hmm, hmm?

But that's just me

Or "I really like your chicken thingy but I'm A BIT BORED WITH IT. You know what I really fancy - - oh I bet it would be delicious if you made that, can you do it?" He'll have to rise to the challenge.

Tactful only in that, as Beansprout says, the end justifies the means. Although he might die of shock, of course.

(Enid, there is also Tory Paul. Whom I don't think cooks at all.)

www! that was almost word for word what I was thinking! but I thought i'd ask about the tactful thing first because y'know, it was tactful. possibly.

Oh my god at salmon with chicken gravy, oh no, was it a deliberate ploy to get you back to the 50s do you thhnk? I have inadvertently copied hairyMcclary's post, sorry, didn';t read it first (who are you?)

will ask dh. When we first moved in together, he could barely boil an egg while I had the full student repetoire of, ooh, six dishes. And some cook books. Dh gradually took over the cooking somehow, muscled in on all the stuff I knew how to cook, so has ended up being the cook in the household. Vaguely - he doesn't actually cook from scratch every night or anything. But I'll ask him, anyway.

i had this with my dh as well i used to start things then "have" to do something else with the kids and instruct him on how to finish and then get him to finish off and it has improved his skills - so i did make pizza bases and left him the veg to chop and assemble the pizza, or do the stew and get him to do the dumplings - recipe on atora packet and i found he needed LOADS of praise just like my dog and the kids! for doing these bits

Oh, Edam, thank you.

I could give him Oliver for his forthcoming birthday. Instead of the barometer he wants. D'you think that would be sufficiently tactful ?

Seriously, the tact is because he's still a bit, you know, sensitive about his cooking skills and variety. If I knee him in the bollocks about it, so to speak, he'll go all hurt and huffy and stomp around the place and cook Tory Ben's bolognese AGAIN.

ok, then, MI, what I tihnk you should say

Grit teeth
"darling, I think your cooking's great and I think you've got quite a flair there actually so I thought I'd buy you a cook book so I could take advantage of it. Sorry to flater you in to cooking more often, you don't mind do you?" Can you do it with a straight face?

flatter, not flater.

And ring someone up afterwards in his hearing and say "oh I got him a cookbook because I don't think he realises how talented he is and it deserves encouragement, that."