Dinner and dessert in one. Why not?

FILE - In this Sunday, July 7, 2013 file photo, celebrity Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay serves up a bowl of "Laksa" a local noodle dish which he prepared at the famous tourist food center, Newton Circus Hawker Center, in Singapore. Ramsay is facing a kitchen nightmare after a British judge on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015 ruled him personally liable for rent on a London gastropub. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)

FILE - In this Sunday, July 7, 2013 file photo, celebrity Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay serves up a bowl of "Laksa" a local noodle dish which he prepared at the famous tourist food center, Newton Circus Hawker Center, in Singapore. Ramsay is facing a kitchen nightmare after a British judge on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015 ruled him personally liable for rent on a London gastropub. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)

Published Aug 25, 2015

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Cape Town - My husband is not Gordon Ramsay. Besides the fact that he has more hair, doesn’t swear as much and never wears pastel jerseys knotted around his shoulders, B’s abilities in the kitchen are more cordon blegh than cordon bleu.

He is fond of combining curry powder with tinned tuna, thinks a jus is Oros and hasn’t yet realised that chopping butternut is beyond the scope of the stab mixer. Even when it makes the sound of a World War II bomber, emits a black pall of smoke and then melts in his hands.

In the steel environs of the kitchen, I’m more Nigella – sans the tiny waist, the massive gazungas, the plummy accent, the art dealer millions, the crystal wine glasses, the glossy hair and the Prada pumps. Actually, I’m nothing like her. But when it comes to food, I know my mélanges from my blancmanges, my petit pois from my petit fours, and can do a mean calligraphic swirl of yoghurt on top of a butter bean korma.

Yet, like many people who have spent too many hours thinking of what to have for dinner, I have lost interest in cooking. Gone are the days when I would fall upon the clammy faces of porcini mushrooms, flushed at the prospect of turning them into a creamy sauce. Now cans of baked beans and soup look appealing, and I spend hours in the aisles of supermarkets staring blankly at bags of beetroots and boxes of All Bran.

So, with my newfound aversion to grilling and garnishing, my husband has been doing more of the cooking, and the results have been daring and faintly gaseous.

“It’s quite hot,” he says, putting down a plate in front of me. “Like Mumbai hot, not Laverne Cox hot.” I prod the red sludge with my fork, and watch as it parts briefly and then congeals back into place. “What is it?” I ask smiling.

“Cabbage chakalaka with raisins and puthu.” Marvellous. Dinner and dessert in one. I eat slowly, my mouth gradually becoming a small forge. “Itsh delisush,” I pant, swigging a glass of milk.

“I think I’ve got the sweet and spicy thing waxed, don’t you?” B declares brightly.

I wait until he’s gone to the kitchen and unload the contents of my plate on the dog, who spends the next hour pulling weird faces and licking her blanket. Mental note: call vet in morning to check on dogs and capsicum.

The following night, we dine on toasted tuna and chutney sandwiches, made in a Snackwich machine that hasn’t been cleaned properly since 1984. I gingerly bite into the bread, and a hot, fishy sludge squishes out, hits my inner cheek and slides down my throat, scalding all organs within a 30cm radius. Putting my plate on the floor, I lean back in the chair and close my eyes. But no matter how much I imagine the mush in my mouth is actually a paella made by a smiling Spanish gogo with a moustache and a herd of goats, the flavours of molten fish and Christmas cake mingle and stick. And when Lily the pig-dog sidles over and sucks the sandwich between her toothless fangs, I feign outrage. B springs up and offers to make another. “Don’t worry,” I sigh, “I’ll just have a banana.”

I know, I know, I probably seem ungrateful. After all, many women would give their left stiletto for a meal cooked by their husband. But I figure that after a decade of sorting socks, stocking fridges and steaming broccoli while attending to the small inconveniences of holding down a job and paying the bills, the least I deserve is a decent dinner. I would give my right Converse high-top for a meal that doesn’t have dried fruit as its base ingredient.

But the wonderful thing about cooking is that it’s a learning curve. Just as I started small, burning a bolognese under the watchful eye of my mother, B is learning that mayonnaise is not nice stirred into stroganoff and raisins are only good when they’re lodged in a muffin. And the great thing about my husband is that he’s happiest with his nose buried in an instruction manual.

“Mmmmm, smells yummy,” I say, staggering in from yet another yoga class where I had sprawled like a car accident on the mat. “What is it?”

“Grilled salmon with asparagus and grapefruit hollandaise,” he says triumphantly, brandishing one of my abandoned recipe books. “See?” he says, stabbing a floury finger at the picture. “Looks exactly the same.”

We sit at the table and I don’t have to pretend. I close my eyes and savour every bite. And while the food might not yet be cordon bleu, through my tears of gratitude B – in his apron and clog-like Crocs – becomes a Gordon blur.

Cape Argus

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