Claire Black: 'In many relationships the kitchen is an area as volatile as a leaky blowtorch'

Published on Saturday 26 June 2010 19:01

'I THINK it needs just a little bit more seasoning." Could there be ten more irritating words spoken in the English language? I think not. I roll my eyes, throw myself on to the kitchen floor and wail. Actually, I didn't hit the deck or cry but I did roll my eyes. A lot.

When it comes to cooking in our house, there's a clear division of labour: I do the chopping and the cleaning up, R does the cooking. I am the sous chef to R's head chef. There are no hats – mine would be short and meek, R's tall and pompous – but we act our parts like a well-drilled brigade.

I chop, wipe and wash, while R seasons, simmers and tastes. It might sound like I've got the muddy end of the carrot, but overall it has tended to work. I get to indulge my passion for obsessive compulsive vegetable-chopping. Have you ever seen that film where Geena Davis is an amnesiac who has her first memory of her former life as a crack secret agent while cutting vegetables? As you've gathered, it's a bad film, but that scene – she hacks her way through the entire contents of the fridge then spears a tomato to the kitchen cabinet by throwing her knife – is one of my absolute favourites. I try to channel Geena when I dice and slice, finely chop and cut on the bias. Carrots and courgettes look so much nicer done like that.

In many relationships the kitchen is an area as volatile as a leaky blowtorch, but we seemed to have it licked. Until recently that is.

The other night, suffering from a brutal hangover earned in the pursuit of dancing up a storm until 4am on a school night, we decided that spaghetti bolognese was the only cure. With Nurofen chugging through my veins I felt reckless so I offered to cook. At that point, looking like I'd just offered to take a bullet for her, R agreed.

I diced, I sweated and stirred. At first R left me to it, but then she started circling. "So you've decided not to put nutmeg in?" she breezes. "Good for you, I think this'll taste just as nice without the stock," she reassures.

It's cooking by stealth. And I've noticed the more I cook, the more it happens. Whenever I have something simmering in a pot, if I leave it for a second, when I come back I'll find R hanging over it frowning.

The issue is that in our neat little division, it's become clear that our labour isn't of equal value. Knowing how to deglaze a pan, understanding when the cream should be added, or how much of the fresh herbs should go in is not the same as knowing how to get beetroot stains out of a wooden chopping board (it just takes time) or how to scour an oven dish (eh, you just scrub it – hard).

So I'm rebelling. I've got to learn. I'm banning R from the kitchen when I cook. I will solicit feedback only once the food is produced.

Seasoning may be mentioned but only very, very delicately.

It sounds hardcore but it's got to be a ban because there's another problem with the status quo that I noticed the last time R was away.

Alone in the kitchen I'm clueless. I have no idea what to cook. All those reductions that I'd watched bubble and ooze, all those last-minute additions, just vanish from my head. And what happens? I end up eating beans and cheese on toast. That's not good.