Cohousing-L Mailing List: One more word on cooking and all

[Dahako (Dahako]

Hi all -

In Eno Commons, we do have a pretty strong expectation that all the adults
will participate in providing common meals - during our marketing phase, we
had food at every event, so I guess we drew in people who liked that mix.  We
also have a strong expectation that every adult will also serve the community
in other ways - either working on the grounds, handling our money, hanging
with the kids, participating in meetings, organizing parties, running
errands, playing airport shuttle at 5am. . . . We don't keep count and we try
to remember to say thank you!

Our common meals are every Tuesday and every other Sunday. One person, B, has
taken on the almost thankless job of assigning people to cooking teams each
quarter.  If anyone in the community needs to lay out from cooking for a
while - job issues, new baby, illness, whatever - that person tells B.  So,
he's the only person who knows who is actually available to cook in any given
quarter.  

Once the assignments are posted on the calendar, there's always some trading.
 In practice, the expectation plays out to something more like - we expect
each adult to make sure *someone* cooks/cleans on the assigned team.

Last year, the group did agree that the person who took on managing the
veggie garden could be exempt from the cooking expectation.  That person was
me, and I never took advantage of it because I like to cook.  I'm not doing
the garden this year and the job's been restructured by the new team.  I
certainly hope no one on the current veggie garden team opts out much - there
are some good cooks among them!

Philosophically, I do think cooking is different from other jobs (like seder:
Why is this job different from all other jobs?).  Of the basic survival needs
- shelter, air, food, we have already helped to shelter each other in a way
that restores some harmony to our lives.  We try to live in the world in a
way that improves (or at least does not worsen) the air.  We can give each
other food - the giving of food from one loved one to another takes this most
basic need to a higher level.  I do think food is better for you when it is
freely given and freely received.  

As a sort of background note - I grew up in a house with two parents who
could really cook.  Big family. Although my parents had an old-fashioned
marriage - he worked outside the home, she worked inside the home, mostly -
and they had a deal where she cooked and shopped most of the time 'cuz he
travelled a lot - Dad would cheerfully help out shopping or take over in the
kitchen when he was around.  My two younger brothers are better cooks than I
am. So I don't have a personal mental link between cooking and women's issues
and I hope I'm not carrying a sexist judgment about different kinds of work
into this discussion.

Jessie Handforth Kome
Eno Commons
Durham, NC
Where my daughter and son like to kibbitz in the kitchen when I cook.  And I
put them to work when they do.