My husband and I regularly share kitchen duties. That mostly means that I cook and Ralph cleans up, although occasionally we switch roles. But we almost never collaborate on a single recipe. Kitchen space is tight, and our differing approaches to the process could pose a threat to marital harmony.
Sonja and Alex Overhiser empathize. “Cooking together is not for the faint of heart, the hotheaded, or the proud,” they write in “A Couple Cooks: 100 Recipes to Cook Together” (Chronicle, $40). “But if you’re open to it, it can be one of the best ways to grow a relationship.”
The Indianapolis-based parents have spent nearly two decades figuring out how to appreciate each other’s divergent styles (“Alex is linear and clean-as-you-go, and Sonja is cloud brain and messy”), and carve out separate areas for prepping. As newlyweds eager to replace the frozen dinner trays they’d subsisted on through college with home-cooked meals from scratch, they worked through recipes together — sometimes clashing, sometimes bombing, and loving nearly every minute.
Besides sharpening their knife techniques, they honed other life skills: perseverance, compromise, respectful disagreement. In 2010 they launched A Couple Cooks, a blog that’s now a multi-media platform with millions of followers. Their 2018 debut cookbook, “Pretty Simple Cooking,” was named a best vegetarian cookbook by Epicurious.
Their latest book also leans heavily on plant-based whole foods, but makes room for animal products. Chapters cover everyday dinners for two or four, larger gatherings with party planning tips, breakfast, sweets and cocktails. Along with tips for swapping ingredients and storing leftovers, each recipe comes with suggestions for dividing tasks between two cooks while preserving the peace.
I didn’t need an extra hand to whip up their super-easy and satisfying Tortellini Vegetable Soup. But the next time I decide to serve Sunshine Citrus Salad with Orange and Fennel — the hit of a recent dinner party — I’ll set up a cutting board on the kitchen table and invite my life partner to join in the peeling and slicing.
If he agrees, I might even offer to load the dishwasher.
Susan Puckett is a cookbook author and former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow her at susanpuckett.com.
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