Tuesday, September 18, 2007...9:38 pm
Kare-kare
It’s ox tripe and meat with vegetables in peanut sauce.
It takes forever to cook. The meat is simmered in water with lots of onion, for two hours or until tender. The malagkit (a sticky type of rice) is toasted on a dry pan and ground into a powder. The peanuts go the same way. There is a variety of peanuts that make excellent kare-kare, it’s those small ones that are a bit on the round side.
I will not bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that I slaved away in the kitchen for an entire day trying to make kare-kare. I am not a cook. And I hate washing dishes. But I cooked, and I washed and I had dinner ready when the Mister came home.
And because I worked so hard on it, I needed to know what he thought about the meal. He says it’s good, but his mom’s is still the best. I couldn’t help it. The tears just started falling. So now I am here. If there was someone I felt comfortable calling right now I’d be on the phone whining. But my twin soul is dealing with big things at the moment, so I whine here instead.
I am not trying to make his mom’s dish. (no offense ma, I know you’re the best) And when I started crying he said it’s not worth crying over. wtf. I can’t help it. I started cooking at 1pm and I finished at 6:45pm. Can you imagine how exhausting that is? And I don’t claim to be a good cook. I don’t want him to worship the meals I serve. I just don’t want the benchmark to be his mom because I will never meet that. She is a grandmother. Grandmothers are the best cooks in the universe. I will always fall short next to her. I am not trying to be her. I made kare-kare because I wanted to be the kind of wife who could cook for her husband what he wants to eat when he wants to eat it.
I am not the kitchen god. God knows I would like to be. I try so hard. But I’m not his mom. So now I’m crying and typing and I have too much peanut sauce in the ref because I made a mistake in the quantity. I am so tired I really want to be hugged until I fall asleep but I can’t because he’s in bed and I can’t go there because I’m still crying and I still hate him for making me feel sad about my cooking.
And he thinks I’m being stupid for crying over this. I hate my hormones. Give me my testosterone back. I was fine before all the estrogen balance was fixed. Back then, I couldn’t have a baby, I wasn’t married and I didn’t cry every week over every stupid thing this Mister said.
1 Comment
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 10:34 pm
I have several techniques for this problem, which has come up a few times in our house:
1. I make sure he knows how long it took, how difficult it was, etc. etc. Then, before he takes a bite, I say, “No complaining or you’re not getting any tonight!”
2. If he makes a negative comment, I tell him, “That took me (exaggerrated amount of) hours to cook, and all you can do is whinge? That’s it. You can cook your own damn dinner tomorrow.”
3. If he complains it’s not as good as his Mum’s cooking, I tell him, “Too bad you didn’t marry your Mum, then,” or, “She’s your Mum. Why don’t YOU cook like her?”
Also, we have a rule that whoever cooks gets to NOT do the dishes. So if I’m ticked off at the hubby for complaining about my cooking, I leave a huge mess in the kitchen for him. Passive-aggressive but oh, so satisfying.
I’m so sorry you ended up feeling bad about your efforts. For what it’s worth, I admire you for even attempting kare-kare–if I tried it, I’m sure I’d end up with an inedible mess. Then again, my favourite recipe book has no more than 4 ingredients per dish.
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