'Unmistakeable'? I Beg to Differ

...when The Washington Post asked Mrs. Obama for her favorite recipe, she replied, “You know, cooking isn’t one of my huge things.” And last month, when a boy who was visiting the White House asked her if she liked to cook, she replied: “I don’t miss cooking. I’m just fine with other people cooking.” Though delivered lightheartedly, and by someone with a very busy schedule, the message was unmistakable: everyday cooking is a chore.

I'm sorry, New York Times op-ed contributor Amanda Hesser, but I think you're mistaken.

Not every person who doesn't enjoy cooking views it as a chore. Let's face it: We place a lot of expectations on the foods we eat, and those people who make it face those expectations. Food is comfort for many of us, and the food we eat must stand and be compared to the trove of memories--emotional and spacial, if you will--of the food we've eaten in the past. People who prepare food face the challenge of not only nourishing others' bodies but also others' hearts and others' emotional attachment to food and their memories.

Is it any wonder then that some people don't thinking cooking is the greatest thing ever?

Really, that's one of things this blog is about: My overcoming all my insecurities and fears and phobias about preparing food. Admittedly, I'm probably way more neurotic than Michelle Obama, but who's not to say she doesn't have her own food legacy that she doesn't particularly feel the need to live up to? The FSM knows she's done and continues to do a lot of other worthwhile things with her time and talents. Why must cooking be one of them?

Additionally, why aren't we badgering President Obama about his penchant or lack thereof for cooking? Why must his wife face this scrutiny? Why is it that many male cooks typically are celebrated with restaurants and cookbooks and TV shows and whatnot while far too many female cooks are the workhorses of private homes who either are uncelebrated in their decision to take up the art and craft of making meals or are slammed for their apparently unwillingness to do so or slammed for, perhaps, being too daunted by the work involved or accused of a myriad of other shortcomings?

If you find you enjoy cooking, great. If you find you don't, so the hell what? That doesn't make you any less of a person--or any less qualified to be a spokesperson for improved relationships with food and eating.