Is Cooking Together All That Hard?
Co-author of books with Suzanne Goin and Jessica Koslow has written a book on cooking for newlyweds
I never really got the concept of “cooking together.” The image that comes to mind is the cliché rom-com scene where the hot guy stirs a pot of his special sauce and gives his girlfriend a taste from a wooden spoon, making her go “mmmm.”
Then I met my future husband, and we started doing our version of “cooking together,” which mostly means cooking for each other. When we cook together, a natural division of labor occurs. I’m good at mise en place, and I like to bake. Bernie is excellent at setting pan to flame and has a way with meat. But even when we are cooking from one recipe, our activities still feel separate. Is this what cooking together is supposed to be?
When I heard that Maria Zizka, co-author of books with Suzanne Goin, Elizabeth Prueitt and Jessica Koslow, was writing The Newlywed Table: A Cookbook to Start Your Life Together, I was intrigued. Normally, I would roll my eyes at something that at first glance seems retrograde, but I had reason to believe that Zizka would offer a fresh take on what it means to cook while in a relationship.
At the age of 31, she has collaborated with today’s darlings of the progressive culinary world…