Susan's Homeschool Blog

I was at a women’s meeting from my church, and we were going around the room, stating our names and something we liked to do. Nearly all of the women included cooking as something they enjoyed doing. It seemed so conventional, like it was a requirement for a Proverbs 31 woman (who never cooked, but had servants to cook for her).

It seemed like people were saying they enjoyed it because everyone else said it, including the pastor’s wife. I wondered if some of the people were lying. Even chefs, after a long day, don’t feel like cooking. My mother-in-law absolutely loves cooking (and is good at it), and I saw in her fridge and freezer only ready-made foods. There was no ground beef or chicken or anything with which to make things from scratch. So do all these women really enjoy cooking, or is that a farce?

When it came to my turn, half the women had spoken already. I said, “How nice for you guys, that you like to cook!” (Everyone laughed.) “I enjoy yard saling.” (Notice, I never said I didn’t like cooking. I just implied it. And now I’m branded as a person who hates cooking, which is not exactly true. I’m just a normal person who sometimes likes to cook, and sometimes not.)

After I said this, almost everyone after me said they hated cooking. Really? Is this possible? That nearly everyone before me loved cooking, and everyone after didn’t? This is highly suspect in a room full of 25 women. No… I think when people realized that I wasn’t lynched for insinuating that I didn’t like to cook, they let out a big sigh of relief. Anyone who accomplishes anything during the day will usually come to the dinner hour with very little energy, especially if she is a homeschooling mother who works 24/7.

It’s okay not to make everything from scratch. It’s not a sin. Don’t feel guilty if you prepare ready-made food for your family, like heating up a frozen lasagna. Enjoy cooking whenever you can. But don’t feel bad about cutting corners so that you can have more energy for your family, which has more eternal value than food that is swallowed.

Tags: cooking

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Cooking and Baking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.