The Deal

Are all men allergic to laundry? Patrick is. I'm not sure how I lived with it for so long: the slouching piles of clothes everywhere, the perpetually full hampers and baskets, the fact that he would treat the dryer more like a personal dresser drawer than an appliance: walk downstairs to the dryer every morning to retrieve the day's clothes, come back upstairs, get dressed, repeat.

If it sounds like I'm airing dirty laundry (pun intended), well, maybe I am. Just a little. But what this post is really about is how things have changed for the better. We made a Deal.

It didn't involve spinach, but I'm getting there. I had to include this picture, because, well, would you look at that freakin' spinach? This was what I carried back from the garden last night, to give to Patrick so he could uphold his end of The Deal. I do all the laundry. He cooks dinner once a week. I cannot describe what a blessing this has become.

I'm not sure how we got away from cooking together, really. We used to do it every night. I was ring leader, delegator, kitchen master. He was capable and willing sous chef. Then, something changed. I started canning obsessively, and baking bread, and making cheese, and refusing to put canned beans on the grocery list... and somehow the kitchen became almost completely my domain. Save for an occasional weekend batch of pancakes, Patrick was banished.

And I missed it. Oh, how I missed our nightly teamwork. Usually I was too busy pre-soaking next week's chickpeas to think too much about it, naturally. But now that slumped, mouldering laundry piles have decreed a return to shared kitchen duties, I couldn't be happier.

I pick the recipe. I shoot for something under half an hour, for the sake of patience and growling tummies. I leave the cookbook open on the counter, and retrieve all the necessary ingredients from the garden/canning cellar/chest freezer. Then I stand back, do some laundry, and quietly watch.

Patrick's cooking night is usually Wednesday, and for me it's the most charming night of the week. I wash his socks, he cooks me dinner.

And after all is said and done, we retreat to our upstairs porch and eat something delicious like Middle Eastern Bulghur-Spinach Salad, and enjoy the evening.

It's a pretty sweet deal, if you ask me.