what cooking taught me about learning, confidence and sharing the load.

I can’t really cook. My father can’t cook, and neither could either of my grandfathers. I’ve never seen my father follow a recipe. Countless times I’ve been kicked out of the kitchen by my mother, and by past girlfriends.

In my family, cooking wasn’t just not expected of me. It was actively discouraged. It was seen as a distraction from my studies. Even now, when I go home, my mother only grudgingly allows me to make dinner.

Nobody ever sat me down and said cooking was a woman’s job. They didn’t need to.

The result is a 30-year-old who could not cook rice, and who once started a fire in his girlfriend’s apartment trying to make toast.

This social reproduction even became part of my personality. My friends would joke that I lived off microwaved meat pies and cereal whenever my partner wasn’t around.

But this sat at odds with my deep-rooted belief that both partners should share domestic duties. I was living at odds with my values.

So this year I’ve committed to cooking three nights a week.

The first few weeks were rough. Plain, simple recipes. Sauces that were closer to water than sauce. But something was different this time. Nobody took the spoon off me. Nobody told me I was doing it wrong or sent me off to do something “more useful”. My partner just ate what I made and let me figure it out.

That turned out to matter more than any recipe. For the first time, the kitchen was mine to muck around in. I could try something, get it wrong and try again without anyone watching over my shoulder.

Somewhere in there, I started to actually enjoy it. Not just the eating, the process. Chopping everything up before I start. Working out what needs to go on first.

I got curious, too. I started looking up where dishes came from and what the original versions looked like before everyone simplified them. Once you know why a step matters, it’s a lot harder to skip it.

The main thing I’ve learned is that cooking isn’t a talent. It’s a skill. You do it badly, then you do it again. Nobody in my family was born unable to cook. They just never practised.

It’s changed things at home too. When it’s my night, it’s actually my night: the planning, the shopping, the cooking and the mess. That’s what sharing the load looks like. Not helping. Doing.

I don’t want to pass it on. When I have kids, I want them to think of cooking as something Dad just does. Not a party trick. Not the one day a year he stands at the barbecue. Just a normal Tuesday night.