When I first married my husband, his idea of a meal was having half a Pepperidge Farm cake after a graveyard shift or going out for Mexican food. He knew better than to ask me if I wanted the other half of the cake (which he ate in his younger days), although I did enjoy having a piece at a time. But I digress.

I assumed as so many wives did of my, um, maturity, that cooking was my job. At least dinner. From the beginning, Jerry and I each fixed our own preferred breakfast and lunch, and I would plan the dinner menus. At first, I did all the prep for our simple “meat and potato” style dinners. To him, mushrooms were gross; broccoli was ruled disgusting (and it still is, to him). But gradually I learned the foods he liked or was willing to try, and I experimented with more complicated meals, as I enviously watched our gourmet friends cook the yummiest and most exotic meals.

Over time I asked my hubby to help me prep for meals. We eat lots of vegetables and he loves to chop. I couldn’t bear to watch him—his engineering nature would kick in and I would watch him precisely slice carrots and celery. Slowly. But he got the job done and it was one less task for me to do. We also discovered it was fun to chat while we worked, as long as I wasn’t in the middle of converting recipes to smaller amounts. Yes, I would often ask him to calculate, and he would insist on telling me how he came up with the amounts while I impatiently waited for the final sum so I could continue my work. I wasn’t really interested in how he arrived at the result!