I hate having an audience in the kitchen when I am cooking, yet my husband often joins me and it is a problem. I have never been one to stick to a recipe and often just throw things together to see how they taste. I love to experiment and, lately, have been adding extra veggies and other healthy things into many dishes as I am making them. I really don’t need a critical eye watching. Added to that, if my husband is in the kitchen with me so is our dog and it becomes an obstacle course of moving bodies. Our kitchen is just not that big.

So, why does he do it? I have been trying to figure this out for a while now and think that it must go back to the beginning when we shared cooking responsibilities. One night he would cook, the next night it was my turn. We shared a glass of wine as we joked that whoever cooked didn’t have to clean and vice-versa, this was together time.

Fast forward to today. I do all the cooking and most of the clean-up afterwards. He sets the table for us and feeds the dog while I am finishing dinner prep. I think that being in the kitchen with me may be a way for him to still feel that togetherness. I wonder if he misses the act of cooking and if helping out, in any way he still can, gives a little of that back?

I need to stop looking at this from my singular perspective and find a way that we can both be a part of cooking dinner without stressing. I need to find ways to be inclusive not exclusive in our daily lives to bring back some of those lost opportunities and make meal prep better for both of us.