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I was just listening to the "Cookin' with Frank and Sam" CD and got to wondering how many of you folks do the cooking in your household. After all, it's a form of self-expression, right?

Now, I don't mean the outodoor "throw something dead on the grill" type of barbecue guy-stuff, but the real day-to-day indoors-over-a-hot-stove art.

My wife is content to be chief dishwasher and leave culinary matters to me. But I grew up in a large family and the choice in matters of the kitchen was to either learn to cook or clean up. So it's familiar territory to me.

Anyone else?

(The only place I wear an apron is in my shop, FWIW)

I do most of the cooking, and I've gotten pretty good at it. Last night we had Thai styled egglant with ground pork. My wife does help out sometimes as a sous-chef helping to get everything prepped.

When in Grad school we got to meet many foreign students and sample much of their home cooking. Most of this food hasen't been available in restuarants where we lived since then and our desire for it was high enough that we've learned to make it our selves. We have a bookshelf filled with mostly ethnic cookbooks.

I love my wife very much, but she couldn't even brown hamburger meat when we met.
When she moved out of her old place, her cabinets were full of easy mac and canned soup. Her place was ALWAYS littered with take out bags.
She has since improved her skills, but the process continues.

Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. We signed up for a community-sponsored-agriculture program where for a set monthly fee, various local farmers present you with a box of produce every week. No promises as to what you'll be getting.

Well, there's the usual corn, potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, etc. All of it very fresh and organically grown. The fruit, particularly is excellent.

The last box had not one, but two large kohlrabi, which sent me scurrying for ideas on how to prepare the thing. (I made fritters with the first one; haven't thought about the second one much yet). Same goes for raab and Swiss chard, and tons of eggplant and squash.

The upshot is that we're eating better that we ever have and the proportion of meat in our diet has declined dramatically. I feel better too. For lunch today, we're finishing up last night's ratatoille served over whole-wheat bulgur.

This also helps out the small local farmers who don't qualify for free Federal subsitdies. Keeps the bucks in the local economy, instead of sending them to Mexico or California.

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Both of us spend time working so we try to keep it democratic. Any messes we make we clean up. We each take care of our own laundry and eat out often. When we do cook, it's usually only on weekends. We have a cleaning lady in once a week to take care of the bathrooms, carpets, and dusting. Above all... there are no kids at home. Sooooo.... I suppose the correct answer is... neither of us wears the apron. Life is good!