A miserable torture
I have to start by saying, I've never really enjoyed cooking.
I have never really enjoyed chopping, seasoning, stirring.
But the Corona period has - unlike many others - meant that I have even less desire to put on my apron.
Feeding a family with two children of different ages and preferences at home for so many months has turned what little joy there was from devising dishes and cooking for friends to miserable torture.
That already starts with the planning of the weekly shop: What can you give?
Can the little ones eat this?
Does the big one get fed up with it?
Didn't we just have that last week?
What's more, it's almost impossible to cook with the two boys in the background while they're clearing out drawers or the fridge.
Relaxation through cooking – there is currently no such thing in our household.
Perhaps the desire to sizzle will improve again if you can again invite people who are happy to sit at the table, don't throw everything down, don't complain out loud that it doesn't taste good, and who don't eat bratwurst for the sixth time a week and want fries.
Until then, I'll stick to our family deal: Whenever possible, my husband cooks and I take my time to clean up afterwards, while everyone is full and has left the kitchen for the children's room.
Ah, what a relaxation!
Lucy Schmidt
Like yoga, only edible
When people my age - I'm 25 - tell something about their "house pasta" with pride and satisfaction, it changes me.
Cooking is now supposed to be the newest way to show how unique you are.
It is also hotly debated on Twitter.
One writes: "Men would rather let their sauce simmer for 24 hours than go to therapy." For my generation, cooking is no longer just a purpose, cooking is self-expression, art, therapy, a search for meaning - like yoga, only edible.
And that's just not as cool as the cooking hipsters like to make it out to be.
Cooking is not an art form, it is a necessity of life.
Order pizza, Netflix on: Everyday life is stressful enough.
I don't want to deny anyone that he or she enjoys cooking, just different tastes.
But those who really love to cook don't talk about it much and don't show it off.
Admittedly, most cooking influencers are very likeable.
So far, the Instagram cooking community is neither arrogant nor annoying.
But you know how quickly that can change with a growing audience and more participants.
Just let the food be food.
Cooking in itself is not corrosive, but the threatening self-promotion behind it is.
Daniel Hinz
I prefer sweets
I don't think I get much out of cooking because I like sweets so much.
Sometimes I have such a craving for waffles that I fire up the iron in the middle of the day – just for myself.
I also love pancakes, quark balls, rice pudding, Kaiserschmarrn.
Maybe that has something to do with the fact that even as a small child I refused to eat meat.
So for me there were only side dishes.
This could – at least according to my theory – have led to the fact that I did not perceive the warm lunch as an enormously enjoyable experience.
As I got older, my compassion for animals also came into play.
Which led me to find over-the-top fuss about food (which is usually made about meat, not perfectly steamed veggies) silly.
Of course I still cook regularly, at least on the weekends.
My eyes burn before I even peel the onion.
Finely chopping them and other greens, fiddling with herbs from the stalks and chopping them - that's just no fun.
We usually ate much faster than we prepared.
To me it feels like wasted time.
For the desserts, on the other hand, I simply add flour, eggs, milk or boil porridge in a saucepan.
It's fast, and for me those are the much nicer moves.
And – what I think is an unbeatable argument: a crumble in the oven smells so much better than cabbage on the stove.
Eva sleeper
The housewife role sucks
When the kids started refusing the disgusting school lunch, cooking became a trap for me.
Food has never meant much to me;
I only insist on regular and healthy meals because I'm convinced that children need it. Suddenly, however, I didn't just have to worry about dinner, but also to prepare Tupperware and lunchpots for the next lunchtime.
Even the thought of which dish should taste which child on which day was annoying.
Many things in life are not fun and still need to be done.
I find cooking particularly stupid because I feel like a prisoner.
Trapped in my role
As long as I listlessly steered the Playmobil fire brigade through the children's room after work, I consoled myself that this was quality time and important for bonding.
If you cook for teenagers, you stand in the kitchen – alone.
It's not about relationships and time together, it's about service.
I've tried to convince myself that puberty is the way caring is expressed.
It still puts me in a bad mood: housewife instead of mother.
Recently, a friend with older children was visiting when the plastic boxes started piling up on my countertop.
"Oh," she said, "You can still cook for her?" It sounded wistful.
Julia Schaaf