Another Good Weekend

I had a good weekend. On Saturday I bummed around and watched heaps of episodes with the bf. We also made our favourite Teriyaki Salmon with Sweet Potato fries for lunch as we wanted something light so we could eat a heavier dinner at our friend’s place that night.

On Sunday we made cold soba noodles (will post the recipe in a separate entry) and caught up on more of our favourite episodes. Then we went to the gym and afterward had dinner at our own places while cleaning up our respective apartments. Later I revised my Norsk lessons and fell asleep – really contented with how the weekend had turned out.

Back to Saturday. I was so impressed when we walked into our friend’s house to see him verifying a recipe on his iPad with one hand and emptying the grocery bags with the other hand. Ahh, domesticated men 🙂 The bf and I have a lot of mutual friends as we used to work together years ago. This is one such friend whose wife is expecting their second child so he was cooking us dinner. Come to think of it, the last time we had dinner at his place – he cooked too.

He made a really tasty Thai style red chicken curry and I have to say it was very good – I had no idea so many men can cook so well in Norway. I have eaten at many other friends’ places and the men always cook so well. It’s not that I think men cannot cook – but what is impressive is that they actually enjoy it: standing in the kitchen with a towel hanging out of their jeans pocket and happily cooking away. That is a beautiful sight.

The bf also cooks a lot of dishes on his own. His specialty is pizza and handmade spätzle but he can follow a recipe and make a tasty dish without any help. Actually we cook together almost every day. We meet up at the grocery store after work and buy the ingredients needed for that day’s dish and then cook at my place (I have a bigger kitchen :)). Sometimes, when he is back in Germany, he cooks some of our regular dishes for his parents.

I’m of South Indian decent and in my culture, a lot of men do not really cook. I mean they can manage for a few days without their spouses but I don’t really think they enjoy cooking.  My father and my brother-in-law – they love good food but they would rather their wives cook than cook the dishes themselves. I guess it’s partly the asian culture where the woman is the mistress of the kitchen and you don’t go into her kitchen without good reason 🙂

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that most of the men I know back home are not very enthusiastic about cooking – I just like the difference in culture. It’s something that stands out in Norway – along with the balanced lifestyle that Norwegian people lead.

Their lives with their family is very balanced. The husband cooks some days, the wife cooks other days. The husband has his guys’ night out sometimes, the wife has her girls’ night out other times. The wife can go on business trips and know that the children will be well taken care of by the husband – and vice versa. I guess this lifestyle is necessary to a certain extent because with the cost of living in Norway, most parents work full time. Housewives are less common compared to Malaysia, at least.