I'm a dietitian, and I hate to cook
I don't love to be in a kitchen cooking for long and have accepted this. This newsletter is a personal essay on this tidbit, but if you are like me, I also have some go to tips and meal recs for you.
Does anyone watch The Real Housewives of New York? (I’m hoping others share my love of mindless reality TV.) I’ll never forget when housewife Carole Radziwill was remodeling her apartment and wanted to remove the kitchen entirely because she never used it. Radziwill was iconic for so many reasons. She was a single “housewife” in her late 40s/ early 50s throughout the seasons and very content with herself. She had previously married into the Kennedy family, she rode the subway versus hiring daily private drivers, was a best-selling author, was unapologetically vocal about her liberal politics, and was even more vocal about the fact that she did not cook. Hence the reason why she felt like a kitchen inside her apartment was unnecessary.
The contractors were in shock, as were the viewers, but for her, it meant more space. I have to say, I am not on that level. I still like my kitchen and use it. I also remember when she was dating her chef boyfriend at the time, and they went shopping for a dinner party because he wanted to make tapenade. What was hysterical about that scene was that she got very excited at the fact that the store sold ready-made tapenade, and when she showed it to her boyfriend, he was not as amused. See, that is the level I am at. I, too, would be excited if there was a ready-made option to save me time in the kitchen.
I need to get something very important off my chest - I’m a dietitian, and I hate to cook. Hate is a strong word. I realize this, but it's true. I don't enjoy it. I have a career talking about food and educating others on nutrition, but there is something about spending prolonged time in the kitchen that I really don't enjoy. And quite frankly never did. There are rare times when I want to make pancakes from scratch, or I save recipes from Bon Appétit or New York Times Cooking that do look interesting and inspirational, but that’s about it.
I want to make it clear that I know how to make dishes, and my stove does get used on occasion, but I am more of a “Rachel Ray-30 minute-meals-or-less” kind of woman rather than a “fancy-pick-your-own-vanilla-beans-Ina Garten” kind of woman. I also teach nutrition classes for work and have to make recipes for others to taste. I know how to boil water for pasta (If you watched this current season 7 of Love is Blind, then you will understand this joke.) I also should say that I love to eat good food. I enjoy going out with my friends and bonding over eggs and a shared plate of pancakes for the table. So yes, I enjoy food.
Why am I even writing this? Well, I was reading a newsletter from
on why she isn’t fond of cooking right now, and it got me thinking about my own lackluster attitude toward the culinary side of things. Now, her story is a little bit different from mine, but it resonated nonetheless. You see when you are a dietitian, you are expected to love all things food. Talking about it, eating it, memorizing the nutritional facts of every label, and, of course, eating it.
There is something really comical about the reactions I get when I tell people I’m not fond of cooking. Confusion mixed with a little bit of distrust in a way. “So how do you feed yourself?” I was asked this by a man on a date once after I disclosed my non-love for being in the kitchen. I mean, I am a fully formed adult, so yes, I have somehow managed to nourish myself. I also found this question strange because we are two adults who live in New York City, a city that doesn’t have a diverse food option problem. In fact, the multiple options often make it harder to choose. This is very “first world” problem coded, I know. But yes, I do manage to feed myself.
Granted, with this particular interaction, I knew it was more gender role-coded rather than dietitian role-coded. I knew this because of the other questions this man decided to ask me on this date, but also, when I returned the question and asked him what he was cooking up nightly, he looked very confused. He also asked me, and I quote word for word here, “What type of mother I think I would be?” without even asking me if I wanted children in the first place. So, I rest my case about the gender role implication.
Speaking of gender roles, funny enough, my dad loved to cook. I mean really LOVED to cook. He would walk around the aisles at grocery stores and find ingredients that “looked interesting,” and try to cook with them at home. At restaurants, if something was super delicious, he would try to recreate it at home. And he was a good cook. I looked forward to his lobster birthdays when he would drive to Chinatown in Manhattan to buy lobsters and make a whole meal with them. I actually preferred this to going out. I loved his big Sunday breakfasts and also just the weekly dinners he cooked. Unfortunately, this gene was not passed down to me.
There could be many reasons for this. I, like many folks am busy with work and sometimes get mentally exhausted with it. There is also a ton happening right now in the world, and also lots could happen here in the States depending on who our next President is with the upcoming election. Basically, there is mental exhaustion that comes with being human. I don't think this fully explains it, but it definitely contributes to my not wanting to come home and cook a meal. Did I mention that I am a household of one, so I don’t feel the pressure of feeding a family? Just myself, which, let's face it, can also feel burdensome.
No one demographic has ownership of being tired. I imagine being tired if you have a family that includes small children and you also work full time. But I am a household of one and am also tired. There are times when I look through recipes, even the quick ones, and I think this would be great, but not for a household of one person. I am not looking down on leftovers, in fact I love having leftovers, but eating the same thing day after day can get old quick. I will also say that my truth is not universal because I have single friends who love to cook full-out meals even after coming home from a full day of work. I am just saying that I am not this way.
Maybe some of you reading this can relate. There is no way that everyone loves to cook, no matter how easy and curated it all looks on social media. Now, in the above I did say that I know how to cook, and I do have go-to dishes and use methods that work for me. There are also times when I get bored with the food I’m eating because I tend to sometimes stick to what I know. Here are some tips of the trade that I use:
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