Do You Like To Cook With Others?

And seriously now, it depends.
I love helping the Grandkids with cooking, especially cakes.
And as Late Night Gourmet mentions, if it is a large meal, big buffet etc. then I am more than happy with a little help, usually with the prep rather than actual cooking.

Amelia Grace and I finishing a cake we made, although she spent more time eating left over cream than actually helping.

View: https://youtu.be/Xo52EBwivM0
 
I enjoy cooking with my wife. About half of the work week we will get home from work about the same time. We prep/cook/clean the kitchen together while catching up on the day. I love it.
 
I'm not great at cooking with others - I tend to take over too much. I love chatting to people whilst I'm cooking, and I'll sometimes ask them to help with basic tasks like veg prep, but generally I do all the work on my own.

When we're staying with family I have to hold my tongue and sit on my hands......when I people doing things differently to the way I do them the urge to take over or make "suggestions" is sometimes almost overwhelming. But then I have to remember that its not my kitchen and I wouldn't appreciate someone butting in when I'm cooking.....sometimes its worth having over-cooked steak if it keeps the peace within the family :wink:
 
MrsDangermouse said:
I love chatting to people whilst I'm cooking,


when I people doing things differently to the way I do them the urge to take over or make "suggestions" is sometimes almost overwhelming.
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I can't talk while cooking, that's half the reason I can't have people in the kitchen. Even if they're not talking to me, I still get distracted and find after the fact that I've skipped whole sections of a recipe.

As to the other point, I live by the credo "There's More Than One Way To Do It" with respect to most tasks, and if I choose to cut the ends off my carrots and then peel, and someone else peels the carrots and then cuts the ends off, it gets us all to the same point in the end, so it's all good.

I also think personal preference plays a big part in things. I like kitchen work, so I purposely take my time, even when I could go faster, and I did have someone point out to me a "better" (i.e. faster) way to prep something, and after them butting in a few times, I finally demonstrated the technique they were going on about, and then rather succinctly explained that while I was perfectly capable of doing that, I chose not to.

And with overcooked/undercooked things, I figure it's their house, their kitchen, their preferences take precedent. If you eat at my house and my wife is eating and we're having pasta, you're going to leave saying it was "overcooked." But that's just in the eye (mouth?) of the eater, and my wife prefers her pasta quite a bit past al dente, so to her, when it's a bit mushy, it's perfect, not overcooked. When she goes to your house and has pasta, she'll likely feel it was undercooked, so it all works out.

I feel very strongly that a person's preferences are their own and they shouldn't be badgered or beaten up about them and told they're doing something wrong just because they don't followed some predetermined standard for something.
 
It is essential to have enough counter space, if you do cook together. A couple years ago two guys came up and made a chili on one counter and I made the sides on another. Worked out well. I made sure this kitchen would be flexible that way.

My parents often cooked together - almost always on weekends, and when Dad retired to work from home, it was just about every night that we were home. They developed a rhythm around each other. They'd go grocery shopping together every Saturday morning, too - usually they'd hit 3-4 grocery stores each time.

Back at the old house, I had a closet-sized kitchen, and the dining space wasn't much bigger. I always hated it when one guest would come to potlucks with her salad makings, and take over valuable real estate to assemble her salad. Really, you couldn't do that at home? Yes, add the salad dressing just before serving, but the assembly??? (She'd been there enough times to know the size of my space.)
 
I don't know if I related this before, but I had someone pester me for a couple of years to show them how to bake bread.

I did everything to dissuade them; sent them a basic recipe, followed up with email full of step-by-step photos, but they insisted on doing it together, and I finally relented.

It was unbearable. I'm fairly well convinced that this person is bipolar (I'm not a doctor, yada yada yada), and when they showed up, it was like they had taken all the cocaine, speed, and Red Bull they could find. They were so excited to be cooking with their "favorite cook" they couldn't contain themselves.

This is a snapshot of how that day went:

"Ok, so the first thing you need to do is proof your yeast, so get the water warm, not hot, and-"

"OMGdidItellyouaboutthisnewflavoredwaterifounditsgreatandittastesjustlikewhatitsaysitisonthebottleItriedtogetJackietodrinksomebutshesaiditwasfullofchemicalswellirememberwhenwewerekidsandsheateallthattrashycsndyandwhatdidshethinkthatwasnaturalofcoursenotshesjustaliarwhodisagreeswith <deep breath>

"-put this whole packet in with a teaspoon of any kind of sugar, even honey, and-"

"OMGIdidntknowyoucouldusehoneyinbreadthoughIguessyoucanbecauseIseeloavesatthestorethathavehoneyinthenamelikehoneyoatbreadhaveyouhadthatI'dloooovethatrecipecanyoumakethatorhaveyouevertriedyoucouldmakethatyou'dloveitIknowyouwould <deep breath>"

And that's how the whole day went, and the nitwit still couldn't bake bread at the of it, and in addition to that, they were way too loud and laughed every five seconds like a donkey braying.

Never again. 👎🏻
 
TastyReuben said:
I don't know if I related this before, but I had someone pester me for a couple of years to show them how to bake bread.

I did everything to dissuade them; sent them a basic recipe, followed up with email full of step-by-step photos, but they insisted on doing it together, and I finally relented.

It was unbearable. I'm fairly well convinced that this person is bipolar (I'm not a doctor, yada yada yada), and when they showed up, it was like they had taken all the cocaine, speed, and Red Bull they could find. They were so excited to be cooking with their "favorite cook" they couldn't contain themselves.

This is a snapshot of how that day went:

"Ok, so the first thing you need to do is proof your yeast, so get the water warm, not hot, and-"

"OMGdidItellyouaboutthisnewflavoredwaterifounditsgreatandittastesjustlikewhatitsaysitisonthebottleItriedtogetJackietodrinksomebutshesaiditwasfullofchemicalswellirememberwhenwewerekidsandsheateallthattrashycsndyandwhatdidshethinkthatwasnaturalofcoursenotshesjustaliarwhodisagreeswith <deep breath>

"-put this whole packet in with a teaspoon of any kind of sugar, even honey, and-"

"OMGIdidntknowyoucouldusehoneyinbreadthoughIguessyoucanbecauseIseeloavesatthestorethathavehoneyinthenamelikehoneyoatbreadhaveyouhadthatI'dloooovethatrecipecanyoumakethatorhaveyouevertriedyoucouldmakethatyou'dloveitIknowyouwould <deep breath>"

And that's how the whole day went, and the nitwit still couldn't bake bread at the of it, and in addition to that, they were way too loud and laughed every five seconds like a donkey braying.

Never again. 👎🏻
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It's not cooking related, but I had the exact same person you trained for bread making, whom I needed to train up on a specialized piece of equipment at work. This was a computerized robotic system and since this was the early 90s, the system was kludgy and ill-advised to begin with. I tried to take her through step by step, in logical order - but she rattled on like your friend, asking every question under the sun except anything pertinent to the step I was showing her - until we got (somehow - maybe because I did it) past that step, then she'd ask about that step. I tried to get her to do parts - but she wasn't paying attention, and was still rattling on.

TBH, she didn't laugh like a braying donkey, because laughing and this woman were not really a thing to begin with.

I'm willing to teach certain personality types. Both you and I have run into the Unteachable at Any Cost types.

==================================
I've actually volunteered to teach folks cheese making, a few people a part of my foodie club. This is something I'm teaching myself over the winter when going places is dicey. I do plan to pass it on. If anyone behaves like S. did back then, I'm going to ignore them, and work with the others. (This will be soft cheeses, as they are quicker and easier and more forgiving.)
 
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TastyReuben said:
I don't know if I related this before, but I had someone pester me for a couple of years to show them how to bake bread.

I did everything to dissuade them; sent them a basic recipe, followed up with email full of step-by-step photos, but they insisted on doing it together, and I finally relented.

It was unbearable. I'm fairly well convinced that this person is bipolar (I'm not a doctor, yada yada yada), and when they showed up, it was like they had taken all the cocaine, speed, and Red Bull they could find. They were so excited to be cooking with their "favorite cook" they couldn't contain themselves.

This is a snapshot of how that day went:

"Ok, so the first thing you need to do is proof your yeast, so get the water warm, not hot, and-"

"OMGdidItellyouaboutthisnewflavoredwaterifounditsgreatandittastesjustlikewhatitsaysitisonthebottleItriedtogetJackietodrinksomebutshesaiditwasfullofchemicalswellirememberwhenwewerekidsandsheateallthattrashycsndyandwhatdidshethinkthatwasnaturalofcoursenotshesjustaliarwhodisagreeswith <deep breath>

"-put this whole packet in with a teaspoon of any kind of sugar, even honey, and-"

"OMGIdidntknowyoucouldusehoneyinbreadthoughIguessyoucanbecauseIseeloavesatthestorethathavehoneyinthenamelikehoneyoatbreadhaveyouhadthatI'dloooovethatrecipecanyoumakethatorhaveyouevertriedyoucouldmakethatyou'dloveitIknowyouwould <deep breath>"

And that's how the whole day went, and the nitwit still couldn't bake bread at the of it, and in addition to that, they were way too loud and laughed every five seconds like a donkey braying.

Never again. 👎🏻
Click to expand...

Sounds like all my cooking with other kitchen nightmares come true!
 
I guess I have been pretty lucky. The friends I have cooked with have all been pretty easy-going, like me. We have always just picked out the part of the meal we were going to make, and just made it -- and we drank and talked all the way through.

My wife and I could cook together pretty well, too. We could not do laundry together, because she would continuously tell me that I am doing it wrong. She was fine with the results, as long as she didn't see me do it. On the other hand, I wouldn't let her do any yard work/gardening with me. She grew up never learning how to do it, and I would get impatient with her.

CD
 
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