Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Friday, November 14, 2014

The Kitchen Insurrection


Women are mad. They’ve revolted. Legions of liberated feminists are abandoning kitchens across the land. Men are starving.

Husbands stagger in, exhausted, ravenous with hunger. “Honey, I’m home. What’s for dinner?”

A voice answers, “Whatever you’re fixing. It’s girls’ night out.” A mournful wail echoes, “What about me?” Silence. Men know. Takeout again.

Women are fed up with cooking. Men, get a grip. It’s not fair, but factual. They’re sick of asking, “What do you want for dinner?” Always hearing the same soppy reply, “Whatever you want, Sweetie.” Women murder for less. Kitchens and cupboards are now as vacuous as men’s bellies and brains. The famine is finally hitting home.

Men ask, why? Simple. Women have spent their finest hours in kitchens, toiling like slaves in sweatshops. Kitchens are where men breeze in, eat and exit. “Thanks, Hon, real good, gotta go now.” Women sit alone at the table, smoldering, staring at the disaster left behind.

Face it. Men aren’t cut out for kitchens. Take cooking, for example. Can men read recipes longer than three words? No. They throw whatever’s handy into the mix, boil it or fry it. Result? More Pepto! Neither can men locate things in the pantry. They stare right at it, and yell, “Honey, you’re out of mayo.” Note the blame: ‘you,’ not ‘we.’

A man’s idea of a kitchen is his grill, an unsightly outside fire pit. It’s a blackened steel drum, rusted and coated with fat and gunk from past fires. The Health Department would declare it a bacillus-breeding contagion. It’s where hapless animals have offered their flesh as backyard-sacrifices, charred, polluting the neighborhood with smoke.

An episode occurred once when my wife was out of town. She called, asking what I’d done for dinner. I answer, “Why, what men have done from time immemorial. I lit a fire, tossed on it a slab of red meat and opened a beer.”

She recoiled in horror, “No salad?” Women have strange ideas of balanced meals. Everyone knows meat and beer are nutritionally perfect.

Men make good use of nature when cooking. Young boys cut down entire trees for fires. Big fires are good. They trim branches and whittle the ends sharp. They thrust the branch through the middle of a wiener, or marshmallow, torching both like brilliant flambeaus and eating the charred residue. Boys can go in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights.

Another reason women have left the kitchen is clean-up duty. Personally, I never minded cleaning up. Except things never really got clean. My wife would inspect the job, usually resulting in numerous re-washes. Cleanliness, you know, is a relative term; men and women interpret it differently.

Creek-bank campouts provide adequate opportunity in the art of cooking. Cooked over open flames, fried fish, potatoes, bacon and eggs were tasty staples. Grease was the imperative ingredient. Hot grease is like gas, mixes great with fire. Boys love fires. With paper towels they wipe the pans ‘clean,’ ready for the next meal. Somehow boys survive. They’re indestructible. They can drink Drano for breakfast.

Would you like to see a woman explode? Let a man collate her cookware in his idea of an orderly arrangement. Washing cats is safer. All men need is one large walk-in closet where everything can be tossed. Perfect male order. A sick thought.

Setting the table drives women berserk. For men, forks, spoons and knives are grouped for convenience, not convention, depending on whether they were right or left-handed. Logical, right? And place mats? Oh, don’t bother. Stacks of table clutter abound… newspapers, coupon inserts and magazines. Napkins? Who needs ‘em. Paper towels are cheap.

Of course there’s more. Try ‘fear of dishwasher.’ Nothing good can come from men learning to operate such equipment. And don’t even mention cleaning kitchen counters. Germs? No way. What’s out of sight is out of mind. The list is inexhaustible.

And so are men’s appetites. Except things are different now. The Kitchen Rebellion has gained traction. She’s out, we’re in. What can be done? Watch Paula, Rachel or Emeril on TV? Not happening.

As for me, I’m posting a “Cook Wanted” ad at Waffle House. And guess what? Grease is making a comeback. It has longer shelf life than kale. And much more tasty.


Bud Hearn
November 14, 2014

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