Who does the cooking at your house?

me,
I love cooking, I cooked as a profession for a long time, and learned alot. I worked anywhere from a line cook, to a grill cook at greasy spoons, to broiler cook @ an Italian steakhouse. Now I enjoy cookign as my hobby, beyond smoking meat I really enjoy making soups, stocks, and pretty much anythign from scratch. We are lucky to live close enough to Chicago to be able to source all the ingredients I need to make anything.

My wife does not cook, but she does the dishes. pretty good trade off in my favor imho.

We both cook and are both good cooks.
she cooks country and i cook cajun and gormet.
Our deal is who ever cooks the other does the dishes.
Works good for us for 26 years

I like to cook, but get home most nights from work to late. Many days off I cook though, and I think I have become the unofficial cook of our Masonic Lodge.

My wife likes to bake and is darn good at it though.

Both of us did and now it is mostly her because of my health...

When smoking she still needs me to help...

I DO!!!!!!

Basically, I LOVE TO EAT!!!...so I cook
My Dad was a good cook and I got to tell ya, "it's in the genes"...

My wife boils hotdogs and eggs...that's as far as she goes.
BUT, she does worship the food I put out and most of it lately THANKZ to what I have learned right here!!

She says it boils down to measurements... she is NOT GOOD with seeing or judging measurements... she is also bad with directions!!... I guess those two things might actually be related in the brain.

I do a fair share a it, momma does the basic meals. I work on the smoked stuff an special sides an such. With the caterin stuff were always tryin out new thins.

We both cook. It's just a matter of who grabs the pans first!

I do all the cooking outdoors, and Gloria does all the cooking indoors. Cuts down on the traffic jams (not a food).

Great question BBQ and like you, my parents divorced when I was a kid so I was required to learn all that real early too.

My older sister could not cook to save her life and overcooked fish-sticks and iceberg lettuce "salad" were not my idea of a decent meal. So, I took the initiative and the rest is history

Course, there were a lot of learnings along the way, but it worked out well.

Now, even though Mrs Rivet is an outstanding cook, she prefers not to do it, so I do most of it.

As I live by myself that would be Me,I also like to cook and create,I also grew up with a mom that was a wonderful cook-she tought me Alot.With working full time I do a few dishes on the weekends to last the week and also freeze for later use.only down side is I also have the dishes after.oil well!

My wife is a certified red seal Chef. ( and yes, we know that red seals are a protected species ) So she does a lot of the cooking. I do a lot more now that I am retired and its about 50/50 Her/Me during the week. I get to clean up all the time. Heck she still works and I'm retired so that's fair.

On the weekends it was entirely different, Me not being allowed near the food. We usually have a backyard party almost every weekend.
Party noshes were her exclusive domain. I was not allowed to enter any of my contributions.
The reason for this strange behavior is that her family will not eat anything anyone outside the family cooks. Too fancy! They are meat and potatoes people, none of them will go for Chinese and most of them will not even eat Pizza, you know foreign food. I know how dumb that sounds but that's my in-laws. They will eat any kind of wild game you can name including snakes, possum, racoons, lion, moose, elk, deer , bear, even skunk. ( Its quite tasty )

Then I started my smoking addiction. ON one fateful weekend we had the In laws over for a back yard BBQ. She planned hot dogs and burgers and the usual stuff. She told me that I could do the hot dogs on the bbq, "but don't screw them up."
Now once in a while in the past I had been allowed to do the hot dogs.
I got a rush of blood to my head and decided that this time I'll do them my way. ( The Good Lord hates a coward )
My way is to score them in a criss-cross pattern with a sharp knife. Put them in the hickory smoker at 230f for an hour and a half. Because there is far more surface area when they are prepared like that so more of the fat drips out of them plus you get better penetration of the smoke. After the hour and a half, I take them out of the smoker, brush on my BBQ sauce mixed with a little mustard. I then sear the sauce to the point of caramelization over a bed of hot charcoal.

Trust me they are worth the extra effort done this way. Well the in-laws absolutly loved them . In fact they clamored for more. They decided right then and there that Maybe I was family after all.

Next Friday My little parsnip flower told me that the family was coming over on Saturday and could I do the dogs they liked so much.
I said "Of course My little pumpkin seed ". ( She hates it when I address her that way, which is why I do it ) The next BBQ I did the dogs same as last weekend. But I suprised everyone with some pulled pork, slow cooked ribs, and some smoked corn on the cob. I also had a bin of Dutches beans ready to go.
With all this going for me I served it up to them. At first all you could hear was the herd at the trough, the gnashing of teeth and the odd snort, but as soon as some of them finally came up for air they universally declared that I should be the BBQ chef every weekend. And that my friends is how Gnubee took back His Manhood and the coveted title Designated backyard BBQ Chef. Can I get a Hoorah??

Fortunately and unfortunately I do it all at my house. I do the indoor and outdoor cooking as well as the cleanup. Although, the kids are pitching in more lately.

When the kids want to cook for me it is a case of either warming something up or I will supervise the cooking. They are both learning to cook, although Matt will do it willingly and Tommy does it because I make him. Hubby on the other hand, is a one pot cook. It all goes in one pot and there is no guarantee on how it tastes. The first (and last) time he cooked for me he left the burner on and burned the pot beyond redemption. After that I took over the cooking, although, he is allowed to warm things up for me.

Can I get a Hoorah??

You got it. Nice story.

I do all the cooking here. Been cooking since I could barely reach the stove top stiring the oat meal in a club aluminum pot. Mom made the best of everything. We were poor so she did a lot of braising cheap cuts of meat. I don't think I had a real steak until I left home and got married. My first charcoal grill was about 2 dollars and had 3 legs to it, anybody remember those?

The rest is history, Mess sergeant, plant superintendant for a small frozen food plant, tamales, pizzas, and chili, then my own restaurant.

But, by far this is the best yet after 1 1/2 years this is my favorire, hands down.

Well, I've always had a thing for the outdoors when I was growing up on a farm/ranch. Two of my brothers and myself seemed to always make time for hunting deer, upland birds, ducks, as well as varmints (fox/coyote). Fishing came up now and then, never often enough though.

It seemed to be my strongest suit to play with outdoor grills at my GF's parent's house...and it was something no one else really had an interest in. My indoor cooking skills were fairly limited...I do recall destroying a beef roast in the oven back in '83 when I applied a topper of sweet pickle relish to the meat...the meat was just fine if you could get past it tasting like a huge stringy hamburger! LOL!!!!!

Anyway, my kid's know to ask before they fire up the grill, and they ask for help to get started. I do the bulk of the outdoor cooking, with cold smoked/seared or hot smoked being the majority of my creations, as well as a few sides.

My girls are spending more and more time in the kitchen now days, learning new dishes under the direction of mom. And, they are demonstrating some interest in the grilling as well, so they should be well rounded cooks, unlike myself. My oldest daughter is getting quite proficient at making ABTs. Now and then, one or two of my kids starts quizing me about the smokers or the charcoal grill when I have a cold smoke/sear going. We've even discussed doing more mods to my SNP...maybe I'll have one hooked on a smoker before they all leave the nest. They all like smoked meats, so that's a start. If I can just keep them interested in learning the craft, so they try their hand at a couple smokes...then, they'll be hooked for sure!

Eric

Growing up in a meat/grocery store, you learn to cook by nature. But, Dad was strict when it came to teaching me how to cut meat. For every cut he taught me I had to learn how to cook it three different ways with different sides on all counts. I had to cook dinner for him, mom, my brother and my sister every night.
The reason for it was we ran a store with fresh meat counters. You waited on every customer. You didn't just serve what they wanted, you had to create the need, tell how to cook it, what to cook with it, how long, how much, how to coordinate side dishes, etc. etc. You couldn't just listen to one of the other cutters and describe it, you had to do it. You sold the sizzle, not just the steak. From hand-cutting a thick porterhouse and presenting it on a fresh piece of peach paper under the bacteria lights (that happened to enhance the bloom of the cut...lol!) to cutting the chine bone on a rib end pork roast, describe how to make sausage stuffing and fill the gap with it and bake it for so long at such a temp and season with this and that and make scalloped potatoes and cornbread from scratch to serve with it and point out we had fresh broccoli and cauliflower in the produce... etc.etc.etc. - you get the idea! You SOLD meat, you didn't just provide it! If it's got meat in it, I learned how to cook it.
Then, I went on to chain stores and also trained in deli-bakery besides meat, learning how to be a professional baker, deli expert (cheese and pizza islands, imported cheeses and what wines went with what cheeses, party platters, salads, parfaits, kosher, you name it).
So, if it's meat, I usually do the cooking. The wife makes mean casseroles and lots of other stuff too, but with her cancer and broken leg, she's pretty much sidelined from the kitchen, keeping her leg propped up all the time.
Hmmmm.... speaking of which, it's time for some popcorn... c'ya!

My wife can heat things up, but I am the cook in the house. She hates to cook, but for the first 5 years of our marriage she struggled through it. We then moved to Alamosa, CO and soon found that there was nowhere good to eat. i mean it is bad here. I started making dishes we enjoyed while we lived in New Mexico. Soon I learned to bake, cook specialty foods, and of course smoking meats. When we travel if we find a dish we enjoyed, I spend the time recreating it when we get home.

Food Network is my favorite television channel. I have watched countless hours of food programming and copy many techniques I see. I have gotten beyond recipes and usually just wing it. I find that once you get comfortable with herbs, spices, and various cooking techniques everything comes much more natural.

The wife does do my dishes though..... What a trooper!

Currently, I do ALL the cooking. Wife used to make something nice on Sundays, but since I started smoking, I make something on Sundays too.
We both work, and I hate cleaning, so I cook. My dad was a Chef, and even though he never showed me anything by way of cooking (he hated it, long story) it never seemed weird to me that a man would cook. When we were first married I was a decent cook. But over the years I got bored with it, and everything was just bland this or plain that. When I started smoking, I woke up again. I don't know that I'm a great cook, but things sure are better tasting around here than they have been for a long time.