Over the last month or so, my husband and I have been sitting down together and creating a meal plan each week. I write the plan in my bullet journal, whilst my husband writes a shopping list of everything we’ll need from the supermarket. Doing this plan has many benefits including developing a broad and balanced diet, less food waste, seasonal eating and picking out some healthy recipes which we’ve enjoyed before or would like to try making.
Although I’m always really tired by the end of the day due to various factors, including my medication and health conditions, I’m trying my best to make sure that my husband and I cook together most evenings. As we’ve been doing this, I’ve noticed so many benefits for our relationship, and this is what has lead me to write today’s Monday Matters blog post. I hope you enjoy reading and are prompted to give collaborative cooking a go. I promise you it can be so much fun, even if you have a small kitchen and have to fight for preparation space!!!
Quality time together
We all want to spend as much quality time with our romantic partner as we can, and cooking together each evening can be a great part of this. Making dinner is a necessary chore but it can be turned into a more enjoyable and relaxing experience if it becomes a joint venture. The whole process of preparing ingredients, cooking, eating and clearing up afterwards not only offers opportunities for mindful activity, it also has the benefit of bonding and strengthening your relationship too.
Teamwork
Creating a dish together is a great teamworking activity where you can share out the preparation, read sections of the recipe out to each other and discuss who’s going to do what to equally divide the tasks. Also, if you alternate who takes the lead, it can boost confidence levels and provide opportunities to practice being assertive as one of you can tell the other what you’d like them to do next, and so on. This can be a real eye opener or learning curve if one of you usually tends to dominate in the relationship in terms of decision making or as the saying goes ‘wears the trousers in the relationship’!
Shared memories
Whether the dish that you’ve spent hours creating turns out to be the most delicious thing you ever tasted, a complete disaster, or something in-between, you can guarantee that many of your shared cooking experiences will lead to fond or funny memories. In fact, according to Meik Wiking, author of The Art Of Making Memories, multisensory activities, of which cooking is a great example, create the most vividly recalled memories of all. Taking the time to really focus on your experiences whilst cooking together – sights, smells, sounds, taste and touch will not only help you de-stress after a busy day, but it will also contribute to positive memory making too.
Encouraging conversation
When following a recipe for the first time, it will certainly prompt lots of conversation about what you’re doing and which tasks you plan to do next. But, as you develop your cooking confidence, learn new skills or make favourite dishes again and again, there’s plenty of opportunity for discussion on a wider range of subjects. Sometimes it might involve sharing stories about your day or talking about how work is currently going, or the focus might turn to making plans for your weekend, an upcoming event or even where you’d like to go to on your future travels. Whatever you end up chatting about, open and meaningful communication is key for healthy relationships.
Developing new skills
There are so many different technical terms and cooking methods that you can learn as you develop your culinary skills together. This week, my husband and I made celeriac soup and the first step of the recipe was to dice onions and thinly slice celery and sweat them in a pan. I had no idea what this meant so I quickly checked on my phone and learned that it involves putting a little oil in the bottom of a saucepan, adding the ingredients and half covering with the pan lid to gently cook them on a low heat. I also found lots of tips for the method such as stirring every now and then and adding a little bit of salt to speed up the process. Next time I see this method in a recipe, not only will we know exactly what to do, it will also remind us of the time we made celeriac soup for the first time (and indeed the first time we’d even tried celery root).
Problem solving
Cooking together can help you both develop your general and cooking related problem solving skills as you make decisions around the preparation of the dish or think about what you might do differently next time. So, for example, you might learn that something takes longer to cook than the recipe said and make a note on the recipe page to remind you next time, or you might learn that your oven is particularly fierce and things get burnt if you stick to the oven temperature or time suggested. Or you might discover that your fridge is directly where you tend to chop all of the vegetables so it’s best to get out all of the required ingredients before one of you gets to work dicing and slicing. For us, we tend to modify recipes either because it serves 4 people or it has strong spices in it, and, as I can’t tolerate spicy meals we might spend some time deciding what flavourings we would use instead, or even if the recipe would work without the spice.
Final words…
In today’s post, I’ve discussed how cooking with your partner is good for your romantic relationship, but the same could certainly be applied to other relationships you have such as a house or flat mate, your children (if they’re old enough and capable of safe basic food preparation) or anyone else you live with or like to spend time at home with. Collaboration in the kitchen, in my opinion, is much better than an hour spent scrolling on your phone catching up on all the various social media platforms you frequent.
Let me know in the comments if you already enjoy cooking with family or friends or if it’s something you’d definitely like to give a try. Or, if not, I would also love to hear why you think it might not work for you personally.
Keeping it creative 