Marriage Musings: Chaos in the Kitchen

Marriage Musings

By Russi Wachtel

Come back every week for Russi's marriage musings as

she addresses every aspect of life as a newlywed!

Read more about Russi on the author page!

 CHAOS IN THE KITCHEN

If I had a door to my kitchen, I would post a sign on it warning any innocent bystanders to keep away while I cook.  The sign would say something like, “I hope you have health insurance because if you enter and get hurt, I am not paying for the damages.”

Unfortunately, my kitchen does not have a door so there have been times when people have wandered in only to escape seconds later with
synched eyebrows and pillars of smoke pouring out after them.

In all seriousness, cooking is not my thing. You would think that at the age of 23, I would have some experience in the kitchen, but sadly, I did not cook much growing up, so for the first few months of marriage I found it hard to prepare meals without messing something up. I either undercooked the food in fear of burning it or I burned the food because I was concerned with undercooking it. Either way, the smoke alarm always went off and something always broke!

My inadequacies in the kitchen used to get me all wired up and anxious, so my focus was completely thrown off. As a result, something dangerous usually happened. One time I placed one of those Pyrex pans atop the electric stove, not realizing that the burner was on. Just as I was leaving the kitchen, the glass pan exploded, spraying shards of glass throughout the room. The sound of the explosion still ring in my ears and my heart has not stopped racing since. Since this incident I have been in search of an apron made out of iron that I could use as a form of armor in case a similar incident should once again occur. Oddly enough, stores do not yet offer such an obvious cooking accessory!  

I wish I would have helped out my mother more with the Shabbas preparations growing up. I think that if I would have spent more time working by her side in the kitchen, then the cooking disasters that occurred early in my marriage would have been fewer and far between. 

My first Shabbosim after getting married were extremely hard for me because it meant making a meal for more than just me and my husband. Boruch Hashem, I did not have to work on Fridays because preparing for Shabbas required my full attention and many hours of hard labor. I remember times that I had serious breakdowns after spending hours in the kitchen, only to discover that I broiled the food instead of baking it. Thank G-d for my husband’s skills with cooking; if not for him, our Shabbos guests would have had to choose between eating food that tasted like tar or tuna salad for all three courses.

Months down the line and many lessons learned, I am now able to pull together meals that taste quite good. I know that with time and more experience in the kitchen, my cooking will only improve and the food will only get better. So what if I have to put out a few small fires while making the food? My kitchen is and probably always will be a dangerous domain. But who cares? The only thing that really matters is how the food tastes anyways….right?