Happy Anniversary, M!

This is the day when I met my beloved M, so excuse this digression while I brag about how wonderful she is and how lucky I am to have met her.

Like many people, I’ve had a number of relationships, some better than others. But I was never with anyone that I knew I wanted to continue to be with as long as possible. I was never with anyone so amazing, so loving, so kind, so smart, so beautiful. I’m extremely fortunate to have met someone I want to share my life with.

Thank you for being you, M. I love you!

Gender Roles

Sometimes I joke that M and I are the stereotypical butch and femme. I do the cooking and she does all the DIY and anything that requires tools (other than kitchen tools, that is, and I won’t say a word about tools that can be used in bed). I wear skirts and dresses and high-heeled shoes to work fairly often, while she’s more likely to be in cargo trousers and sensible shoes. I have long hair and she has short hair. Etc.

But really that doesn’t say much about who we are, individually or as a couple. And I get annoyed when people wonder which of us “is the man” or when someone says that if we ever got married, clearly I’d wear a dress and she’d wear a suit. It just seems silly to me. Who decided what it means to be masculine/butch or feminine/femme anyway? Why does using a hammer make someone manly while boiling some pasta makes someone womanly?

I don’t like the idea that gay couples have one butch and one femme. Yes, I know some lesbians say they like their boys to be girls, or their girls to be boys, but that’s not how I am. I don’t want to imitate heterosexual relationships and I don’t want to feel like my behaviour has to challenge the hetero norm either (but if it does happen to challenge hets, that’s good). I am just attracted to a particular woman and I’m happy to play a variety of roles in our relationship. (Although I must admit that my beloved is in some ways a soft butch and ever since I met her, I’ve had found myself admiring other soft butch women. But that doesn’t mean I feel like I need to be with one or that I have to mould myself accordingly!)

But then we get to the issue of cooking. I’m told that cooking is very femme and thus I must “be the woman” if I do most of the cooking. I can point out, incidentally, that many well-known chefs are male, so I guess in our society, we feel like men can be professionals, but it’s women who have to do the cooking at home.

So am I the woman, because I cook most of our meals? Am I the femme who needs a big butch woman to protect her? Do I feel pressured to cook because of the gender roles in our society?

No, I don’t think so. I’m just someone who likes to cook and to feed her sweetheart. Luckily, my sweetheart doesn’t enjoy cooking, so we’re able to divide our labour at home fairly evenly. She has other skills and other hobbies. So I’ll happily stand at the stove and stir. That I do that doesn’t say anything much about my gender identity or about my role in our relationship.

Vegetarians Who Eat Fish

I see a lot of people who say they are “vegetarians who eat fish” or are “pescatarians”. Eating and/or preparing fish is something I myself struggle with, as I live with a carnivore. I don’t think it’s right for me to inflict my own views on someone else, so I sometimes cook fish (though I wouldn’t cook meat, and of course that makes me wonder why that is my particular limit, and what makes fish okay (once in awhile) but meat not). Most of my friends eat meat, too, and some are picky eaters who are hard to satisfy or who have many objections to various food items. Since I love to cook and M and I occasionally entertain, that means I make food dishes at times.

I know some couples where the vegetarian half even cooks meat for the carnivorous one, but I confess that even the idea of having meat in the house, much less in my pots and pans, disturbs me. But then I know others where the carnivorous member/s of the family only eat meat when out at restaurants.

When M and I were away for the weekend, she had the full English breakfast, sausage and bacon included, each morning, while I had my vegetarian version (hoping my food hadn’t been made in the same pan) and tried not to feel too queasy at the thought of what was on her plate. But she “humoured” me by going to vegetarian restaurants with me and she usually eats my vegetarian food at home. Also, of course, she isn’t a vegetarian and I knew that when we got together, so I felt I had no right to say anything or feel sickened. Maybe I’m just oversensitive.

How do others deal with this? Will you cook fish and/or meat for friends or for omnivorous partners/relatives? How do you feel about them eating meat in front of you?

Ode to the Sous Chef

It was on this day that I met M, so I want to take a moment to write an ode to my beloved sous chef.

What is a sous chef? The sous chef (full title: sous-chef de cuisine) is the second-in-command in the kitchen. This is the person who works with the executive chef, helping, supporting, preparing, and generally doing everything that needs to be done. The kitchen simply wouldn’t function without the sous chef.

I do most of the cooking at home. But that doesn’t mean that M doesn’t play an essential role. She does most of the shopping and she is always eager to help chop vegetables and prepare the ingredients for me. She also cleans up, usually fixing the messes I’ve made. She takes out the rubbish much more often than I do. She takes care of things and makes sure everything is running smoothly around our little Veggie Dyke home. I wouldn’t get to have the fun cooking and baking that I do if it weren’t for her.

But that’s just in the kitchen. M plays this same role in general. She is always supporting and helping me. She never gets enough credit (just as the executive chef always gets the attention while the sous chef is underappreciated) and I probably don’t thank her enough or tell her often enough how great she is. She makes my life better in every possible way.

So here’s to my sous chef, my partner in the kitchen and everywhere else – I love you!

Potato Latkes

Hanukkah is almost over and I was determined to make M some typical Jewish food while the holiday was going on. I’m an atheist Jew, which means I don’t believe in a god or any of the other accoutrements that usually accompany religion, but I do have a Jewish family and grew up with Jewish culture around me. That includes Jewish food.

M isn’t Jewish and never had Jewish food before, so I thought it would be fun to cook it for her. But I also was a bit worried. Even though M is always sweet and never criticises me, I had flashbacks to a previous partner, whose Christian family made fun of the Jewish dishes I cooked for them. They claimed to be interested in Jewish things, because of course their friend Jesus was a Jew, but then they mocked anything that was different from what they were used to, and they seemed to view Judaism as an outmoded set of beliefs that was simply there to make way for Christianity. Again, M is nothing like this, but somehow I was worried that she wouldn’t like the food anyway.

But Hanukkah seemed like a good time to force myself to face my stupid and ill-founded fears. I’d gotten 8 little gifts for M and they were piled up in the corner of the living room, poorly wrapped (I’m an awful wrapper!), and it was snowy and icy outside. So potato pancakes seemed like just the thing.

Potato pancakes – called latkes by us Jews – are quite easy to make. The only important thing to remember is that potatoes can be pretty watery, so once you’ve grated the potatoes, press them and strain out as much liquid as you can. That way the latkes will be much crisper. If you don’t want your Hanukkah food soaked in oil, despite the fact that it’s an oil-based holiday, use kitchen towel to pat the fried latkes dry.

Serve with sugar, crème fraiche or sour cream, and apple sauce, and open a few presents while you’re at it. Next thing you know, you’ll be singing “dreidel, dreidel, dreidel” too.

As for M, she liked the latkes. I was relieved. Now I just had to find something else to worry about, which meant wondering if she liked all the silly and sappy gifts I’d gotten her (heart-patterned socks, anyone?). Time for another latke!

Ingredients:
4-5 potatoes (I used blue ones for variation, but any firm sort will do)
1 onion
3 eggs
3 tbsp flour or matzoh meal
1 tsp salt
oil
sugar, crème fraiche or sour cream, and apple sauce to serve with them

Instructions:
1. Shred or grate the potatoes and try to press as much liquid out of them as you can.
2. Grate the onion and add it to the potatoes.
3. Beat the eggs and add them to the potatoes, then mix in the flour and salt. Blend well. Meanwhile, heat the oil over low heat.
4. Fry heaping tablespoonfuls of the potato mixture until crispy on both sides.
5. Serve with sugar, crème fraiche or sour cream, and apple sauce.

Vegetarians Do It Better

Do vegetarians make better lovers? According to this post and similar commentaries, vegetarians are generally healthier, so have more stamina and energy, plus tend to be in better shape, which can mean that they more attractive. Vegetarians are also known to generally smell better than people who eat meat, and no one wants to sleep with someone stinky.

Whether vegetarians are less affected by impotence isn’t of much interest to lesbians, however (I could point out that thanks to the wonders of silicone strap-ons, lesbians are never impotent, but I’m not that vulgar…oh, wait, I clearly am!).

There’s also the issue of how some people find ethics sexy, and if you’re the type of person who doesn’t relish the thought of killing other living creatures, then you might be turned on by a vegetarian.

So do vegetarians do it better? Well, possibly. You’d have to get my girlfriend’s opinion, but maybe I’m better off not asking her to comment!

Still, the general point is a good one. Looks, health, and values are all undeniably important, and if vegetarians rank a bit higher there, then perhaps in some ways, vegetarians do actually do it better.

A Woman's Place

Why are home cooks mostly women and professional chefs mostly men? Why is cooking for one’s loved ones still considered to be such a feminine activity, while cooking for money is masculine? Why is one deserving of respect whereas the other one is simply expected?

I certainly have no pretensions of being an amazing cook and I have no desire to cook professionally, but I do consider my cooking and baking to be more than a hobby or something I’m supposed to do, because I’m female. It’s a creative outlet, combined with a way of showing people that I care for them. Feeding someone is the most basic thing you can do for another person, and it means you are keeping that person alive, nurturing and nourishing at the same time. But we don’t respect this, unless it’s done under the auspices of an event, by which I mean a gourmet meal in a restaurant. And in that case, it’s almost always prepared by a man, who is considered an artiste.

The one thing I ever remember my father making for me was a sandwich. On Saturdays, when my mother was at work, he sometimes made me a warm sandwich – meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo all stuffed between two slices of bread and warmed in the microwave until the lettuce was wilted and the cheese melted. All these years later, that dish still sticks with me. And meanwhile, my mother cooked for me every day. She made me breakfast, packed my lunches for school, and cooked a nutritious, if meat-heavy, meal every evening. I could name some of her dishes, but they don’t really say as much about her as that sandwich does about my father. Because my mother was the woman, and she was supposed to feed her family. All my father had to do was bring home the bacon in a metaphorical sense, not cook it (I am not sure he’d even know how). So the fact that once in awhile he entered my mother’s zone and made me a sandwich is memorable. And this seems awfully unfair to me, but it’s still the way things are to a great extent.

So here I am, doing what’s expected of me, making meals for my loved ones. Am I just being a typical female? Have I been tricked into thinking I like to spend time in the kitchen? Well, no, I’d like to think not. Obviously, I have to cook, in order to survive, but I choose to cook tasty, healthy meals that might require a bit more time and effort. And, perhaps more importantly, I choose to make meals for other people. I do this to show them that they matter to me. And to take care of them. And sometimes I do it to show off my creativity too. It’s not only men who know how to combine ingredients in new and unexpected ways; women can and do have fun with food too. And we deserve respect for that.

Maybe I should start charging people who come for dinner at my place!

How I Met My Girlfriend

I'd only been living in this city for a few months when I met the woman who is now my girlfriend at a party. I was working 70 or more hours a week at a very stressful job, living in a half-furnished flat, and my previous girlfriend had dumped me completely out of the blue the week before.

It was not the best of times.

So there I was, sitting on a couch at a party consisting of lesbians and bisexual women, chatting away to a colleague/friend, when I noticed a cute dykey sort across the room. Towards the end of the party, I got a chance to talk to her. I'll call her M on the blog. M and I spoke for a few minutes; it was the day before Valentine's Day, and we said something about the crassness and commercialisation of the holiday. I was giving a public lecture a few days later and I invited her to come along.

Later, she tweeted that she thought I was lovely but frighteningly intelligent. And that started off a months-long volley of flirtatious comments via Twitter. I wonder how much modern technology influences relationships today.

So she came to my talk, and to the pub after, and then we stood chatting in the car park. She didn't say all that much, so it's more correct if I say that we stood there, on that cold February evening, and I chatted while she listened. When we said good-bye and I was driving home, I thought, "M must think I talk too much. I don't like she liked me at all." A small part of me thought, "But did you see how she looked at you?" I dismissed that thought, and I told myself that I had better not dare to get interested, because I was just newly single again, and it didn't seem likely that this woman would go for me anyhow.

A week and a half later, I had some furniture delivered. Not being much of a DIY dyke, I struggled for a very long time trying to put a coffee table together, and I finally gave up. In my defense, I should point out that at least I figured out how to put the pillows correctly onto the sofa.

I mentioned all this to M, who then told me how good she was with tools, and she offered to come over and help. We met up at the local grocery store, because my place is a bit difficult to find and also, I figured we could shop together and I could cook her something for dinner to thank her for her help. In the store, I thought she was annoyed with me, because she wouldn't tell me what she wanted to eat. It turned out, however, that she doesn't really enjoy the process of thinking about food and cooking as much as I do, but I didn't know that then.

Back at my flat, M got out her tools, and I got out mine. She went to work on the coffee table and I started to make dinner. The coffee table was put together in less than five minutes. Dinner took a bit longer and it was not my greatest dish (pasta with broccoli and tomato sauce). That's because I was distracted. M looked so cute, so focused, while she was screwing the legs to the top of the table. And the whole situation made me smile, too, because it felt very butch/femme. I was the femme, cooking dinner while the butch was doing DIY. At least I wasn't wearing a dress, apron, and heels.

Later, I "helped" put the sofa bed together, but that was very difficult for me because she was bending over and I could see down her shirt. It was a nice view. A tempting view.

When everything was done, we lay down on the sofa bed together. It was quite comfortable, but I felt strange. I was exhausted from the stress of the past weeks and months and my heart was racing at the same time.

M left soon after, in something of a rush, and I still wondered, "Does she even like me as a friend?"

So I first cooked for her about two weeks after we met. The evening was memorable, even if the meal itself wasn't.