Last Sunday I was in a cooking mood but a quick glace in our fridge told me that there’s nothing for me to cook. That and the awful weather didn’t stop me though. Impulsively, I put on my thick jacket and went to this small grocery store nearby our flat. Without any idea what to cook, I fiddled through the store’s shelves and was pleased afterwards to learn that they have all the ingredients needed to cook meatballs. After buying what I need, I rushed back home and for an hour and a half or so, I busied myself in my tiny kitchen.

The meatballs were not as delicious as I had imagined them to be but nonetheless, I enjoyed preparing them.

I like cooking and I just realized how much I missed it.

So anyway, we do have minor difficulties sometimes and most of them are pretty common to married couples but there is one particular thing that I think is unique to couples in an intercultural marriage and that is the problem on what food to eat. To date, most of our petty quarrels are about food. You see, I am an Asian. Three days without eating rice makes me feel like I am going to die soon and my husband feels the same if he can’t have potatoes or bread (good ones). When I can, I prepare two sets of meals (Asian and Western) but most of the time, I can’t. Now that I am attending a German class that runs every day from 1:00-5:30 pm, I don’t have the luxury of time to prepare two sets of meals so I can just prepare either Western or Asian. To make the matter worse, my husband is very choosy when it comes to food. So sometimes when I prepare Asian food and he doesn’t like it, he won’t complain but he won’t touch it either. Instead, he will find other things to eat. Sometimes, he’ll settle for chips and mini salamis for dinner! First I’d feel sad because he won’t eat what I cooked then afterwards I’d feel guilty because he doesn’t have a decent dinner when he comes home from a whole day of work.

Other than this particular cultural difference, I cannot think of anything else that gives us problems.