An Interesting article by Lilian Kithia

So what if I can’t cook!

By LILLIAN KITHIA Posted Friday, April 17 2009 at 18:23

Allow me to start by requesting all the sisters out there who can not cook to please raise up their hands; I will feel much more at ease pouring my heart out in this column when I know that I do not belong in this category alone. Just for the record, my concern here is far from feminist.

And this is not a piece about gender equality or any such thing. As a matter of fact, none of the issues discussed in the 1995 Women’s Conference in Beijing will arise in this column. You can call me ignorant if you want but I honestly do not have a clue as to the issues that were discussed in that conference. And If I ever go to China it will be because I want to learn how to use chopsticks. Yes, I am that archaic.

So when I write about cooking, I write, not as a liberal women’s rights activist - or anything close to that - but as a woman who simply cannot cook, appealing to those women whose gastronomic skills allow them to ‘rub shoulders’ with the likes of Martha Stewart and the ‘top chef’ crew to give ‘us’ (the women who cannot cook) a break.

It’s not my fault that I cannot cook! Yes, yes, I know this sounds lame and cliché-d, but how can it possibly be my fault that anytime I put unga (flour) and water in the same pot, I come up with something poisonous? Don’t say ‘making ugali can be a bit tricky’ because then you would have to explain why anytime I make my sukuma wiki (kales), somebody has to spend the night at the dispensary. Well, most time it’s me ending up in the ward because none of my friends would dare let me cook for them.

And no! Don’t blame it on hygiene because cleaning is one of the things that I do right. In fact, if you ask a psychologist, they will tell you that my cleaning ranks somewhere near obsessive-compulsive because I clean everything. Especially before I cook it.

It’s not that I don’t try. I do! For whatever it’s worth, I’ll have you know that I took home science as one of my subjects in high school. But something dangerous still happens between the time I light a cooker and the time I switch it off. And every time I try to cook, I get a clear reminder that this just isn’t my department. AT some point I just had to accept that I cannot cook and give it up.

That is why I feel violated when any woman - or man - goes on and on about what they think of women who cannot cook. Do not get me wrong; I personally have nothing against women who can cook. As a matter of fact, I was raised by one. Yes! I’ll go on and brag about it. My mother’s cooking can get you a gate pass into the heart of any man.

But just because some of these culinary skills did not rub off on me – despite all of her efforts to ensure they did – does not make me any less a woman. And when the time comes, it won’t make me any less a wife or mother.

Let’s be realistic here. There are lots of other ‘female’ things that I can do amazingly well and with very little effort for that matter. For example, I can rock any baby to sleep and clean particularly well. I’m not very bad with a sewing machine either.

So why should I – or anybody else - keep obsessing about what I cannot do while there are things I can do pretty well. I want to be allowed to blow my trumpet where I excel and never to be made to feel guilty where I fall short!

So at the risk of ruffling the feathers of everyone reading this article, I will ask the million dollar question. “Is there a brother out there who doesn’t mind cooking for two?”