I started dating my husband 17 years ago (holy crap is that right?!?!) And I spent the last 10 years married to him. The most important lesson that I have learned is that, indeed, my place is in the kitchen.

Now before you go all “women’s lib” on me let me start by saying that I am all for equality. I am a successful career woman and am the primary breadwinner for my ever growing family of five. This is not an issue of gender roles. This is an issue of self-preservation.

This man, who is wonderful at so many things, once screwed up making Easy Mac. Yes, you read that correctly. Easy Mac. You know the product that is marketed to and designed for 8 year olds to be able to make their own snack without any supervision. My husband, a [mostly] grown man was unable to follow the four simple steps to produce a bowl of chemically enhanced red dye #40 noodles.

Recently he has taken an interest in cooking. Most women would welcome this with open arms. I, however, can not handle it. Can. Not. Handle. It. For one thing we are southerners. What’s the problem you ask? Well, my husband loves to cook southern “soul food” which as we all know [Paula Deen] is less than healthy. I am still trying to lose the last five pounds (okay okay fifteen whatever) of baby weight and do not enjoy partaking in said soul food. So this has led to the hubs smuggling in pounds of sausage and cinnamon rolls like a Mexican drug lord and squirreling them away in the back of the fridge so that I can’t find them. But this isn’t the worst of it.

He has taken to making biscuits and gravy at least once a week for the last month. Now I love biscuits and gravy as much as the next southern fried chick but this is just too much. Despite my protests that “We may as well be eating glue!” He continues to whip up batches- weekly. He is also trying out different recipes. The last recipe (made this past Sunday) had a base of vegetable oil. VEGETABLE OIL!!! Holy disgusting!! It was this weird brownish color that looked like peanut butter had been swirled together with sour milk. And speaking of sour milk a few weeks ago he made a batch of gravy using milk that was clearly more than a few days beyond it’s life cycle. *BLECH*

As if the constantly flowing river of saw mill gravy isn’t enough in my kitchen he has also concocted a recipe for potato soup. What’s wrong with potato soup you ask? Well, let’s start with his ingredients. His base is several cans of cream of mushroom soup. He adds to that about 5 pounds of potatoes and about a dozen sliced hardboiled eggs. To top it off? You guessed it….sausage. It’s not even the good kind of sausage. He literally buys frozen sausage patties, thaws them out, and (using kitchen shears) cuts them into fourths. The finished product look like something that would’ve been served to Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web. It. Is. Revolting.

He has even begun to twist my poor, innocent children’s minds into thinking this is real actual food. Once he served the kids steaming hot bowls of pig slop potato soup for breakfast. FOR BREAKFAST!!! I very nearly changed the locks when he went to work that day.

We have finally come to an agreement about the potato soup. He is no longer allowed to cook it while I am in the house. Even just the mere mention of “potato soup” makes my stomach turn- not to mention the pungent aroma that sticks around for days. Thank God I travel for work. He can have his potato soup and eat it too- just so long as the leftovers make it into the fridge at his work before I return home.

So you see it is in my best interest (and the best interest of my children) that the kitchen remains MY domain. He can stay in the damn garage.

If you like this you can also read my manifesto against deviled eggs in The devil in my eggs or my chili pepper mishap in That time Pinterest almost blinded me.