Kitchen duty.

When I was in my late teens I would always hang out at my best friend's house, and her mom would always put her and her sisters on kitchen duty. Debone the chicken, skewer the pork, chop the onions, pound the garlic, cook the rice, set the table, and the list goes on.

"You'll never find a husband if you can't cook," she would say, over and over again, to her daughters. "Nobody wants to marry a wife who can't perform her kitchen duties."

Recently I told Darren this, and he laughed because I was the perfect example of how a woman can get married despite being entirely useless in the kitchen. But how common of an example am I, really?

How many women are actually unable to cook for their husbands? Is this something I should feel bad about, is it a responsibility I have to a happy home?

I mean, my husband cooks for me about once a week and happily sets the table and serves dinner for both of us. This morning he was looking up chicken and fried rice recipes online so he could expand his kitchen repertoire.

Archaic wife-in-the-kitchen mentality aside, I reckon that I should learn how to cook, a dish at a time, and maybe someday I'll be able to make a dish that Darren actually wants to eat. It would allow us to eat healthier meals, I think, and save money by not having to eat out or get takeout that much.

So far, I'm able to pan-fry just about anything, scramble eggs, boil eggs, make instant noodles and make sandwiches.

Don't get me wrong, I'm absurdly proud of myself for being able to do any of these things - because not too long ago I was entirely useless in the kitchen. But the thing about being married to someone from a different culture is that your culinary tastes are different too, and there's nothing that I can make that my husband wants to eat. The food he wants to eat, I've never even had before. I wonder if other people have this issue too, and how they resolved it?