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Dear Doctor Love,
My boyfriend and I recently moved in together. He told me he did not have any skills as far as cooking and laundry and I agreed to do those things and in turn he would pay certain utilities while we split the rent. It seemed like a good arrangement until I found out that that he won’t eat anything I make. He likes very few foods; hamburgers, rice and beans, egg whites and spaghetti. But not spaghetti with ground beef or vegetables, just the sauce right out of the bottle. He hates garlic and cumin and onions make him push the plate away. He heaps salt on everything and will not touch chicken, pork chops or salad. I love vegetables and eat a variety of foods. He would eat the same things every day. Am I supposed to make two different meals every day; one he will eat and one with the vegetables I love?
/s/ Kitchen Quandary
Dear Quandary,
So you want to eat pasta with peppers and would happily make it for him? He prefers plain tomato sauce. The solution; buy a bottle of spaghetti sauce, heat it on the stove. Boil the pasta. While the pasta cooks slice and dice the vegetables. Put the plain sauce on his pasta. Add vegetables to the remaining sauce and put it on your pasta. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? He wants a hamburger; you want pork chops? Buy a pound of ground beef, make four patties and put them in the freezer. When he wants a burger, take one out and fry it. Fry yourself a pork chop at the same time and make your salad. But really, frying a burger or frying a chop is the same task, and requires the same energy. They can be done at the same time, even in the same pan; the only difference is the animal. Egg whites are simply scrambled eggs without the yellow. None of his food preferences are demanding or hard to make; it just requires slightly different ingredients. So, are you mostly upset that he will not eat your cooking? Don’t take it personally. Eat as you have always done. But don’t try to force him to change to your menu. Leave the garlic, cumin and onion out of his meal and put the salt where he can reach it. This will prepare you for the day when you have a two year old who will eat mud pies but screams at the sight of a carrot.
