It's okay if you order food more often than you cook

When someone at work asks what I'm going to cook that evening, I get a shock. Cooking? Uh, oh right. Oops.

In principle, I could live in a house without a kitchen. A coffee machine, yes please, but a stove? Pans? Mixers, blenders, bowls or colanders? Meh, hardly necessary. I think I'm a bit addicted to ordering. And as much as I would like to say it’s because of my kids, that’s not true. I can obviously use them as an excuse, that I'm way too busy with a seven-month-old twin, that I find the combination of work and motherhood challenging, that cooking sometimes falls by the wayside. But no, that’s not true. I didn’t cook either when I wasn’t a mother.

I just really hate it. It starts with grocery shopping. Walking through the cold to that supermarket, searching, wandering, going back, chopping everything, mixing, stirring, baking, frying, steaming, and simmering just to eat it within three and a half minutes, thinking: that wasn’t so tasty, and having to clean up the whole exploded mess in the kitchen. I just think: some people can cook much better than I can. I can do other things. And that’s how we all help each other a bit in the world. So hooray for Deliveroo and Uber Eats. I couldn’t do without you.

Here’s an ode to ordering food instead of cooking yourself:

1. It saves you a significant amount of time. You can spend that time on your job, your hobby and your children. You’ll ultimately be happier for it.

2. It saves you stress. That hassle with that stuck cordon bleu (can we still eat that nowadays or is it not done anymore? I have no idea…). Less stress = a happier life.

3. It saves you arguments with your partner. What do you want to eat, what does your love want to eat? That nagging about dinner… It’s not necessary when you order. He can eat meat (is that still allowed?) and you can have salad. Or pizza. Or pasta. I’m getting hungry.

4. Why is it also a solution? It’s not just unhealthy food that you order. On the contrary, I can find healthier things in those food apps that are also tasty than I could ever make myself. Take those vegan spring rolls (they’re definitely still allowed, thankfully) with that soft rice dough. Or spinach with beets and goat cheese. Or a mashed potato dish with red cabbage. Nothing wrong with that.

5. You’re not alone. Certainly a third of people ordered food online and had it delivered in the past year. Especially the group of thirty-somethings does this.

6. It doesn’t have to be more expensive than cooking yourself. Often it is, I admit, but I also sometimes order a container of Indian food, that curry, you know it. You get a huge piece of naan bread with it. That container of curry for sixteen euros is so big that we can easily eat it for two days. So that’s four euros a day. You wouldn’t bother to do it yourself, right?

Okay, I know: it all sounds incredibly lazy. But I’m really not. I work quite a few hours a week and also try to keep up with the household and motherhood enthusiastically after four hours of sleep. Cooking doesn’t really fit in there. And I do go to the supermarket for breakfast, lunch, and food for my children. But I don’t belong to the creative cooking club of Amsterdam. Sorry, don’t be mad, I’m really doing my best. Next week I’ll make soup. Myself. I mean it.