Chopping an onion into big, almost inch chunks, he cut the red tomatoes in half next from the stem to the root, and then sliced them width-wise. As soon as the pan hit the heat, he added a generous portion of melted butter. Simultaneously (multitasking with much ease), he broke in a couple of eggs into a bowl, followed by an array of not-so-finely diced ingredients, and his secret ingredient black pepper. With an up-and-down as well as back-and-forth motion, he then beat the hell out of them until there was no strand of white or yellow.
"This is going to be the perfect omelette," I thought to myself. After a long leave that I had happily sanctioned my cook, soon after which I fell sick, our kitchen had turned into a dismal wasteland. But the man of the house aimed to do something productive in the kitchen that day.
But it was when the eggs produced a loud satisfying sizzle on the pan, that I critically questioned my insights. "Wait a minute! Tell me you didn't tell me that you 'don't know how to cook'!" I exclaimed. He smirked extravagantly wriggling his elbows and body, and then drawling to me he said, "Don't know, yah."
After five years of sharing our lives, I had just come to terms with the fact that he's probably never going to make the kitchen a romantic place to be. And yet, here he was, regaling in harmony amid broken egg shells and inedible onion skins.
Whilst I coughed away to glory, he gracefully plated up a perfect, bright-yellow, butter-doused omelette with a sprinkle of pepper and a burst of colourful veggies that looked warm, earthy and inviting.
Unwittingly following the pattern of a triangle as we sat at the dining table, the three of us began consuming the omelette effectively. As my husband and I recounted the story of "I don't know how to cook" and laughed out loud, while also praising the newly discovered sneaky chef, it was obvious that our three-year-old daughter didn't like this kind of commotion at the table. She preferred her mother giving her the fullest attention. I then cut a perfect triangle and speared a morsel of omelette into her mouth and asked, "Happy now?"
Of course, while I can't say enough good things about our new chef's debut performance, one thing is certain. As Gloria Steinem puts it: "Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it."
So in her mortar when you swing a pestle, there, you can see Her fly across the evening sky.