I would like to do the cooking, but in practice Gunslinger does most of it. He’s better with beef, you see, and to boot he is a picky eater and most of the recipes I already knew before we hooked up are worthless.
Desserts are my world, though. And we have a dishwasher, which - since the apartment is really MINE, not his - should truly be my responsibility, but in practice we both work together on it - one unloads, the other puts the dishes away, then we both reload it.
I do most of the cooking. Ms. C. is a decent and inventive cook, but her preparation methods leave much to be desired. She’s of that deluded group that believes that if you turn the burner on ‘high’, it will warm up more quickly. This may be true, but it takes longer to cool down also, and we have had a lot of scorched butter in our kitchen (last night, for example) and a couple of grease fires (she tends to become distracted by the nearest shiny object).
I usually keep a watchful eye when she’s in there, and, being a kitchen Nazi, will often take over and finish whatever meal she is attempting to prepare. I’m much better at conceptualizing ingredients for a new dish, whereas she tends to mix things that don’t go well together.
Since her sense of time is non-existent (a whole 'nother thread), we usually will end up with cold toast or sticky pasta, or overcooked veggies.
These are not complaints, however. I love her to death.
SuaSponte and I cook 3-4 times a week, usually together. Often, one of us has chosen the menu and is “in charge” of that meal, and the other helps out with chopping, grating, stirring and so forth. If one person has prepared the entire meal, the other will handle the cleanup.
We’ve only been doing this for a short time, and I love it. We’ve been trying tons of new recipes (though many of his are chili :D). I cook way more now than I ever did when I was living alone, and we’re both eating a lot healthier.
The next place we live will have a bigger kitchen!
During the school year, he does most of the cooking. I have several night classes each semester and I’m usually not home until 10. If I came home and there wasn’t food waiting…well…he knows better than that.
In the summer, when I don’t have school or really work either, I’m in charge of the kictchen. Clean-up, cooking, and shopping.
We’re both OK cooks. We won’t starve to death or poison ourselves unintentionally. We’re not stellar by any means, and we have a limited repetoire. But what can you do? Neither of us have the skills/personality to be a really good cook, so we struggle along.
When we were first married ten years ago, I did most of the cooking. Then, we shared cooking duty, switching off nights. I used to tease her that on nights that she was supposed to cook, we tended to eat out.
Now, since I’ve actually embarked on my career, and since I’m usually not home until 7:00 pm or so, she cooks all the time. I tend to only cook if it’s on the grill on the weekend.
I do the vast majority of the cooking. Cooking, to me, is life. I experience Zen-like Satori when I cook. I am perfectly in the moment and all of my cares and worried melt away. I am nurturing and giving when I am cooking. It is a joy in my life.
A couple of odd side notes, cooking-wise in the Binarydrone household: I am very dangerous to be around in the kitchen. I have many years of Chef and restaurant training under my belt. As such, when I get into the kitchen, it becomes my station. As such, it is ingrained that no one else is in my station. If I need to move to point B from point A, I just spin and move. God help the person that may be in the way (6’2" 210 lbs.). Also, I have a hard time not flinging vegetable peelings and the like on to the floor! My hand just does it when I am chopping. How my sainted wife tolerates me, I will never know.
He usually does the cooking on the weekends (I almost never cook on days I have to work), and he has throw-together type stuff on Monday and Tuesday. On my days off, though, I generally cook. If I don’t cook, I wind up waiting for him to get home, and then we grump around saying “I don’t know, what do you want for dinner?”, and we wind up not eating until 8:30 or 9:00. I’m used to having my main meal before work, and my temperament decidedly does not benefit from the extra four hours’ wait, nor does his temperament really benefit from having to make these sorts of decisions after a crappy day at work. So unless we’ve previously decided to go out, I at least try to have something planned. It saves us a lot of unnecessary crankiness.
I have a stable of pretty basic recipes that I trot out on a regular basis, like roast chicken, chicken pot pie, chicken caesar sandwiches with garlic fries, something I call chicken rollups (I have no idea what the real name is, but it’s chicken, ham, and cheese rolled together, crumbed, and baked), thai peanut pasta, and sweet potato soup. When I go grocery shopping (usually after work Tuesday) I tend to buy stuff to make at least three of these things and plenty of stuff for snacking and throw-together meals, so we never have to stand there whining because there’s nothing to eat.
Dr.J on the other hand likes to try elaborate new recipes and go to the grocery before just about every meal.
I guess I do about 70% of the cooking, just because I get home first. Both Mrs. Uvula and I are competent in the kitchen and enjoy cooking, so it often boils down to “whoever gets home first makes dinner.”
Fairness in the kitchen is maintained, however, because when one of us cooks, the other does the dishes. Quite frankly, Mrs. Uvula gets the better deal on that, because I clean up as I go along leaving her with only the dinner dishes, while she piles up the damn pans and prep stuff in the sink, leaving me with the whole friggin’ mess.
I’m with ya. My wife will lament that I shouldn’t have to come home after work and then work in the kitchen. She doesn’t understand that it’s therapy as much as anything else (“Should I use the knife on this onion or take it to work with me and dice up the CEO?”). There’s rhythm and art and intellect in preparing a good meal, and honing the economy of movement is satisfying to me.
My lovely wife and I have been married for 25 years. When we both worked, I did about 1/3 of the cooking. Now I’m retired, and she’s still working, and long hours, so I do most of the cooking. I’m learning a lot, and most of the time, I enjoy it. Sunday breakfast is Mrs. Nott’s specialty. I don’t like dishwashing, and I tend to get way behind on that. We have an electric dishwasher, but I don’t use it for pans, kitchen knives, or glassware I’d like to keep for a long time.
Once or twice a week the missus cooks (and she’s good at it). The next night is leftovers. One night a week we go out. The other nights it’s every man, woman, and child for him/her/its self. Since I never get tired of spaghetti, it’s my number one staple, while she has a salad or frozen diet slop, and my son goes for frozen pizza or McDick’s. It’s a primitive lifestyle, but we get by.
I do all the cooking, inside and out (grilling).
We do a big breakfast on Sundays, and dinner almost every night.
We have a small, 50s-era kitchen, and no dishwasher.
We order out about once a week, either pizza and subs or Chinese or from a local TGIFridays-type of place.
I made the comment in the housecleaning thread that if he cooked, he wouldn’t even know where basic stuff like cookie sheets and pots were, and that all he can make is cereal and toast, which is just a little true. He works late some nights, and on those nights, I save a plate for him to heat up in the microwave.
He’s pretty good about taking leftovers for lunch. He hated the thought of leftovers when we first got married, but has since gotten used to it, and even looks forward to them.
His mom was not much of a cook, and I’ve done a lot towards “fixing” his palate. When we first moved in together, he’d never had meatloaf or any type of chicken casserole or even pot roast. He came to realize that chicken and turkey can be moist and tender - she always cooked it till it was dry as a bone. I also helped him realize that steak is better rare, rather than very well done.
Hubby will help clear the table, but I prefer to clean up on my own, since I want it done my way. Yeah, I get a little anal about it.
He likes going to the grocery store with me for big stock-up trips, but otherwise hates it. He’s pretty good about expressing what he wants for dinner. We rarely play the “What do you want for dinner?” “I don’t care - what do you want?” game.
My husband hunts every fall, and this past year got two deer. Our big freezer in the basement was full - I mean FULL - of venison. The deer were living near an apple orchard, and the meat was really sweet. We’ve been eating really good!
I do all the cooking, and all the cleaning up (I’m male). On Friday and Saturday night, I take a break, and we go out to dinner. It works for me, especially since she has to do the laundry. Mwahahahaha!
I cook for the_llama every night. He’s the simplest eater you could imagine, so homemade mac n’ cheez has become one of the food groups. If I want something ‘fancy’ (seafood of any sort or any kind of cassarole), then he’s on his own. There are 2 nights a week we get pizza from one particular place, being picky about our palates, and of course Chinese.
I also clean, do laundry, and dance on my head for a nominal fee 
Side note: He does his share, but he’s not as anal about some things as I am.
I was visiting a friend once, who’s not the greatest cook, and she was telling me how much she hates doing dishes. She said, “When I get married, I’ll do all the cooking if my husband will do the dishes.”
I asked, “But what if he’s a better cook than you are?”
She said, “I don’t care! I would rather eat bad food than do the dishes!”
Now me, I would much rather do the dishes than eat bad food. Shudder.
(She has since gotten married, but I didn’t think to ask her how the dishes were going.)
I do most of the cooking because I get home before Ardred does. However, he does the grilling, but I do the inside stuff (like slicing the cheese and sauteeing the mushrooms).
He always does the dishes.
Good Lord, Mr. Athena must be cuter than bunnies. If the Devil’s Grandfather hung over me in the kitchen like that, there’d be a messy homicide.
I do most, but not all, of the cooking in our house. He helps sometimes, always if I ask. He bought a dishwasher before I moved in, and I can’t imagine being without it.
I do the majority of the cooking and usually find it a labor of love. My wife is a good cook, but tends to just slam things together (burner only has one setting - high). Sometimes we cook together, but I usually let her help with something just if she’s feeling left out. As long as I’m not having to step around someone in the kitchen all the time, I’m a happy camper and can move into my own little world. I also do the vast majority of the shopping, keeping track of common staples, any special upcoming ingredients needed, etc. Sometimes I plan meals around what’s fresh and available, sometimes not. Love to bake looks down at rounded belly As for who cleans up the kitchen, we have a dishwasher but I’m usually the only one who seems to know how to operate it.
THe last time I tried to make a meal from scratch, we took one look in the slow cooker and dumped the contents into the garbage. Nuff said.
Whoever is home first starts dinner. This means over the past year or two, he has done most of the dinners 5 days a week and I’ve handled weekends other than Saturday lunch. (Because he always wants to make homemade burgers and fries for Saturday lunch.)
This will likely change over the next little bit as he just took a second job and while he will be home during the usual dinner prep time, he will need to be napping to gear up for the 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. His day shift is 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. I’m going to need to pick up the slack and let him sleep and we’ll have dinner a bit later, with him leaving after we have dinner.