MILs obsession with cooking with me

[Anonymous]

I posted about it not being a bad thing. OP, you are a nice person. I am an immigrant myself, from Eastern Europe, and also independent and I had trouble with my own sexist mom towards my DD.(hopefully you will not face that issue down the road). You sound kind and nice and try to understand her motives. It doesn't sound like she is MIL from hell, just from another country. Since your DH is clueless(as I suspect many men from his culture are?) find online where are the ethnic shops that your MIL might like and then have your DH take her and his dad. Or maybe your FIL might like a nap during that time? Suggest to your DH that he comes home early few days and go for dinner with them while you work and stay a bit later. Did you mention kids? One day this might be a great activity with grand kids. Have her write her recipes down...My own mom wrote the recipes for me when I married my American DH, and just for laughs now, my own mother wrote on that cookbook, never ever live with his or your parents... And now, 26 years later she is more than willing to move in with me, but I am sticking by her advice! Ha, thanks mom!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds to me like OP married someone who is a naturalized American and whose mother comes to visit from the "old country". In MIL's world, the women do the cooking, homekeeping and child-rearing. However, OP's situation is not traditional in that she makes 80% of the HHI and they have an American home where the duties and chores are shared.

MIL is passing down her family cooking traditions through her DIL as she was raised. In her world, daughters and daughters-in-laws are the ones who carry on the home traditions including cooking. So she insists that DIL (OP) does this. Yes, she taught OP this the last visit, but in her mind, if since OP doesn't make it regularly, it's because she doesn't know how, not because she doesn't prioritize making a homemade version of the family tradition. So, MIL will try and teach OP again to do this task, which she views as an important tradition.

OP, I'm sorry that you are going through this. I understand it as my parents are Chinese immigrants. Fortunately, they met in the US when they were young and married and had their children here. Over the last 60 years, they've learned enough about American styles and traditions that they adapt their cultural traditions to our lives. My mother still remarks regularly that she can't understand how her two boys (I'm 53 and my brother is 60) are the ones who carry on the cooking tradition (my mother was a Chinese cooking instructor when we were young) and her daughter (my sister is 58) can burn water. My sister can barely cook herself dinner with a microwave. I know a number of long time family friends, in similar situations, whose mother's, although in the US, are still tradition bound and want their daughters and DILs to be the cooks and to pass on their traditional family dishes.

I'm glad that you are being kind and going along with her traditions and letting her have her way. If she only visit infrequently, it is the cordial thing to do and you get karma stars for doing it. Please feel free to come here and vent, so that you can face your MIL with a smile for the duration and send her home happy. Even if you have to throw away the frozen food later to make room for food your family will eat regularly, you're doing a good thing. Or you can tell your husband that he needs to cook and eat the frozen food to clear out the freezer that his mother packed. It's the least he can do, since you were good enough to take the lesson and make the food with her.

+1

And please why sis dim sum so tasty? Do you know how to make it? Is your marriage on the rocks? Wink, wink!! Just kidding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm really curious about what this multistep kitchen destroying recipe is!

I don't know about OP but my Russian MIL will take over the kitchen and prepare mountains of sauerkraut, pierogi, Napoleons, breads and so on. I love her to bits but it always looks like a bomb went off. Fortunately my job is limited to cleanup.

I was about to suggest OP lets her MIL loose in the kitchen! She might come home from work to feast every day! Man, I would love that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s trying to pass on a tradition. Suck it up.

Doormat.

yes, I think by now we all know you pp. You are a DIL, SIL, daughter from hell, no doubt you post advice on how to shut down any of that and nip it in the bud. Probably post pretending to be a MIL too, is it not tiring being so nasty all the time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm really curious about what this multistep kitchen destroying recipe is!

I don't know about OP but my Russian MIL will take over the kitchen and prepare mountains of sauerkraut, pierogi, Napoleons, breads and so on. I love her to bits but it always looks like a bomb went off. Fortunately my job is limited to cleanup.

I'm the person you quoted and pierogis is exactly what I was envisioning. I've never made them but I can see how they'd be a chore to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds to me like OP married someone who is a naturalized American and whose mother comes to visit from the "old country". In MIL's world, the women do the cooking, homekeeping and child-rearing. However, OP's situation is not traditional in that she makes 80% of the HHI and they have an American home where the duties and chores are shared.

MIL is passing down her family cooking traditions through her DIL as she was raised. In her world, daughters and daughters-in-laws are the ones who carry on the home traditions including cooking. So she insists that DIL (OP) does this. Yes, she taught OP this the last visit, but in her mind, if since OP doesn't make it regularly, it's because she doesn't know how, not because she doesn't prioritize making a homemade version of the family tradition. So, MIL will try and teach OP again to do this task, which she views as an important tradition.

OP, I'm sorry that you are going through this. I understand it as my parents are Chinese immigrants. Fortunately, they met in the US when they were young and married and had their children here. Over the last 60 years, they've learned enough about American styles and traditions that they adapt their cultural traditions to our lives. My mother still remarks regularly that she can't understand how her two boys (I'm 53 and my brother is 60) are the ones who carry on the cooking tradition (my mother was a Chinese cooking instructor when we were young) and her daughter (my sister is 58) can burn water. My sister can barely cook herself dinner with a microwave. I know a number of long time family friends, in similar situations, whose mother's, although in the US, are still tradition bound and want their daughters and DILs to be the cooks and to pass on their traditional family dishes.

I'm glad that you are being kind and going along with her traditions and letting her have her way. If she only visit infrequently, it is the cordial thing to do and you get karma stars for doing it. Please feel free to come here and vent, so that you can face your MIL with a smile for the duration and send her home happy. Even if you have to throw away the frozen food later to make room for food your family will eat regularly, you're doing a good thing. Or you can tell your husband that he needs to cook and eat the frozen food to clear out the freezer that his mother packed. It's the least he can do, since you were good enough to take the lesson and make the food with her.

+1

And please why sis dim sum so tasty? Do you know how to make it? Is your marriage on the rocks? Wink, wink!! Just kidding.

Dim Sum is so tasty because it's Chinese! (pats self on back). Yes, I know how to make several types of Dim Sum. I love it. When my mother comes to visit, after the kids and my wife go to bed, my mother and I will sit and make 2-3 different types of dumplings and freeze them. It's a little different than with OP, because it's my mother and my wife doesn't have to do this. My mother and I bond while cooking together. My marriage is doing great. We've been married 16.5 years, together for 20. And very happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s trying to pass on a tradition. Suck it up.

Doormat.

This pretty much sums up what is wrong with a huge percentage of the people who post on this forum. Spending an hour or two out to your life with an older relative who will experience joy from passing along their cultural traditions does not make you a “doormat.” It makes you a kind person.

[Anonymous]

I don’t enjoy cooking so I would let MIL do it while I washed the dishes and cleaned up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP-you sound very rigid and resentful and your plan to smile while you accomodate her adds to the wall you’re already reinforcing between yourself and this woman who raised your DH and is grandmother to your DC.

Why don’t you suggest that DH (or your FIL) videos your MIL cooking this with you? I realize you say its a long and involved process but if you record the highlights of the process-your MIL can feel that it’s being preserved and then your child at some point when your MIL is dead or unable can see beyond your filter and disengagement and perhaps find the depth of tradition and connection tgeir father’s mother was trying to gift them.

Mil pops up again. She's got a special bat-phone that lights whenever a woman complains about her mil.

[Anonymous]

This thread makes me sad for totally different reasons. My mother is/was a disinterested cook, although she is also an immigrant. Food did not equal love in our house growing up, and I have no special recipes from childhood. My MIL is disinterested in us in general, and I have no idea about her cooking. She never visits for more than an hour, and even then rarely--but lives only 1.5 hrs away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds to me like OP married someone who is a naturalized American and whose mother comes to visit from the "old country". In MIL's world, the women do the cooking, homekeeping and child-rearing. However, OP's situation is not traditional in that she makes 80% of the HHI and they have an American home where the duties and chores are shared.

MIL is passing down her family cooking traditions through her DIL as she was raised. In her world, daughters and daughters-in-laws are the ones who carry on the home traditions including cooking. So she insists that DIL (OP) does this. Yes, she taught OP this the last visit, but in her mind, if since OP doesn't make it regularly, it's because she doesn't know how, not because she doesn't prioritize making a homemade version of the family tradition. So, MIL will try and teach OP again to do this task, which she views as an important tradition.

OP, I'm sorry that you are going through this. I understand it as my parents are Chinese immigrants. Fortunately, they met in the US when they were young and married and had their children here. Over the last 60 years, they've learned enough about American styles and traditions that they adapt their cultural traditions to our lives. My mother still remarks regularly that she can't understand how her two boys (I'm 53 and my brother is 60) are the ones who carry on the cooking tradition (my mother was a Chinese cooking instructor when we were young) and her daughter (my sister is 58) can burn water. My sister can barely cook herself dinner with a microwave. I know a number of long time family friends, in similar situations, whose mother's, although in the US, are still tradition bound and want their daughters and DILs to be the cooks and to pass on their traditional family dishes.

I'm glad that you are being kind and going along with her traditions and letting her have her way. If she only visit infrequently, it is the cordial thing to do and you get karma stars for doing it. Please feel free to come here and vent, so that you can face your MIL with a smile for the duration and send her home happy. Even if you have to throw away the frozen food later to make room for food your family will eat regularly, you're doing a good thing. Or you can tell your husband that he needs to cook and eat the frozen food to clear out the freezer that his mother packed. It's the least he can do, since you were good enough to take the lesson and make the food with her.

+1

And please why sis dim sum so tasty? Do you know how to make it? Is your marriage on the rocks? Wink, wink!! Just kidding.

Dim Sum is so tasty because it's Chinese! (pats self on back). Yes, I know how to make several types of Dim Sum. I love it. When my mother comes to visit, after the kids and my wife go to bed, my mother and I will sit and make 2-3 different types of dumplings and freeze them. It's a little different than with OP, because it's my mother and my wife doesn't have to do this. My mother and I bond while cooking together. My marriage is doing great. We've been married 16.5 years, together for 20. And very happy.

Thank you for replying! Of course your marriage is doing great, you make dim sum!

[Anonymous]

Can you suggest she make it with her son? Say you’re feeling under the weather and while you had a blast making it with her last time, you’ll like for DH tonhave a turn. Or tell him to step in. I’m not entirely clear on what exactly the problem is. If it’s the mess, tell DH to clean it up. If it’s the time, pass it off to DH or tell MIL you need a nap because you’re coming down with something. If you end up with too much, ask to make a half batch.

[Anonymous]

Anyone else really want to know what the mystery dish is?

Come on OP, tell us!

[Anonymous]

My sympathies, OP. This is NOT how I would want to spend my time! However, if it makes an elderly, kind, relative happy... I would do that for my MIL.

[Anonymous]

She should do this with her son as a bonding experience. Like dim sum man above. Win win for all.