I have this argument with my wife often. I like to cook, and for me cooking is more than taking frozen meatballs and dumping them into a pan full of jar pasta sauce. I would rather make the sauce, maybe have some meatballs made in advance. My wife seems to think that pre-made stuff or mixes are the way to go. I would rather just make pancakes scratch, which isn’t hard, where she would rather I just open the mix, add water, and make the food. But I do agree that having a frozen lasagna is better than taking the full effort when I just want to get dinner going. So where are your eat the pre-made vs make it from scratch?
Wait, why does she care if you are the one making it?
I make almost all my meals from scratch.
IMO the person doing the cooking should get to decide. Like any household chore, you don’t tell the person doing it how to do it, you appreciate them doing it. Now asking them, would they make such and such how you like sometimes, is reasonable. Insisting isn’t.
The pancake mix was a particularly stupid argument in my opinion. She said that’s what her mom always made and she likes it. It’s hard to argue against it since her mom has been passed for about 15 years now. She tried to pull nostalgia on me, and I don’t have nostalgia for food.
I’m not really qualified to give marriage advice, but if you want to hear an opinion based on no real life experience anyway, here goes:
I’d personally just do the box mix for pancakes that she wants, if it is something particular and special for her, as a show of good faith, and cook other meals the way you like, as long as you are the one cooking.
My thinking is along the same lines. I think OP and his wife both have good arguments for making certain dishes certain ways. And indeed, it seems (to me, in my unqualified opinion) that they need to have an ongoing conversation about which dishes each wants made which way.
OP’s wife is nostalgic for a certain boxed pancake mix because it reminds her of her deceased mother? Cool, that’s pretty low-stakes, just make the boxed shit. But part of OP’s self-care routine is cooking food from scratch, and that’s important too.
OP is right that fighting over this is silly. OP is wrong that scratch-made will always be better. Oh, I’m sure it will taste better, but in the long run it will be worse for OP’s marriage.
And crucially, they both need to be flexible. If OP takes pride in their cooking and the couple is having company over for brunch, then maybe leave the boxed pancake mix in the pantry and let OP wow the guests with their delicious and fluffy scratch-made pancakes. And of course, OP needs to remember that that flexibility is a two-way street.
I get it. I’m the same way about instant mashed potatoes because that’s what my grandma always made and that’s just how mashed potatoes should be (to me). Not a fan of real ones really the texture is just off. I can’t speak to pancakes because I can’t think of any pancakes I’ve ever had that really stand out from any others but it could be something like that. Pancakes certainly don’t seem to be worth arguing over to me.
Yeah my nostalgia food is Kraft mac&cheese. It always tastes amazing as it reminds me of my childhood …… but i try to rarely have it