A big fuss is made in our modern society over traditional gender roles, and how they might discriminate. Solely against women, mind. It never occurs to these equal rights fighters that having to go out and chase wild animals, or slaving away at hard jobs for hours on end might not be the dream for men. Weird, that.
Anyway, I've got a different "role" on my mind, which is the cook. Traditionally, it's the woman who cooks and nurtures the family, and in their bid for equality, modern feminists didn't hesitate to tear that to the ground. They've somehow made it so bad as to shame women who enjoy cooking for their families, to make it into this bad, taboo thing.
I love cooking. For myself, but also for others. I've never seen it as a chore. Maybe because no one told me I had to do it, although on a level, I do think it's natural for me (as a woman) to take the lead in that. Which isn't to say I'd mind a man cooking, or anything like that. But I wouldn't find it dismissive or sexist to be the one who cooks, either.
A lot of modern women take on this mentality of "I'm too busy to cook" or "I don't need to be a good homemaker (? Is that still the word for it?), I've got a career". I've talked to enough women who think that just because they have artistic or professional or external inclinations and aptitudes, they don't need to be good at the home stuff. Which is technically true. You don't need to.
But in my experience, preparing a meal or a treat for your loved ones brings a very different kind of satisfaction from other professional or artistic endeavors. And I think it's a great shame that for many women, that satisfaction goes down the drain, along with other more toxic gender mentalities.
I've long been a history buff, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that we can't take historic facts, events or customs and judge them out of context. Not if we're going for accuracy. And I feel that's what's going on, to an extent, with this whole home-maker thing. Housewife? Casalingua? I'm not sure.
It's not unfair for the woman in a heterosexual relationship to be expected to cook, clean, and look after the children. The man was out there working long hours, presumably in not very enjoyable jobs. The man was also responsible for a range of typically masculine duties like household repairs. You can't say it's unfair as long as duties are equally divided, can you?
Obviously, there was an injustice, with women not being allowed to hold down a job and so on. Arguably, some women wanted to and could've done it well, as recent decades have shown. Then again, if we look at a lot of young women today, you've got a host of sugar babies, and chicks selling pictures of any and every bit of their body for money online. Why? So they don't have to work. So it's probably fair to assume not all of them wanted to work in equal measure, you know?
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is it's a shame that so many young women are put off cooking. They're certainly missing out on a lot of positive benefits (it's calming, satisfying, and allows you to develop a nurturing instinct that is natural in a woman), and they're not doing themselves any favors by opting for the quick and easy frozen, pre-made supermarket meals. Or by grabbing greasy takeout every other evening.
Really, for the age of convenience (so-called), we seem desperate to make things harder for ourselves. For one, we're going against natural instinct, and for another, we're substituting fresh, wholesome meals with garbage. So that we what... have more time to scroll TikTok? Don't get bitchy glares from so-called feminists? Fuck that, man.
Anyway, this sort-of rant was brought on by something I'm making, actually. Now, cooking is one area that I find social media to be really useful in. I'm always seeing delicious, easy recipes online, and I've found quite a few "hacks" I enjoy through my newsfeed.
I found this recipe for coconut cheesecake the other day and it was instantly mouth-watering. I'd been meaning to prepare something nice for my loved ones for a few days, not knowing what, and knew this was it when I saw it. Cheesecake is definitely one of my go-to treats, particularly for the summer. I love traditional cheesecake with a bunch of berries and fruits, or chocolate cheesecake.
But I'd never tried coconut before.
Again, this recipe is mostly from IG, though I did adapt it to suit my taste, to an extent, and also my pan (28cm), as the IG recipe was for a significantly smaller dish.
What you'll need & How to do it
(for the base)
220g biscuits
120g butter
Crush biscuits until they're a fine dust and mix it with the melted butter. Now, this is a no-bake recipe so you can leave them to set in the pan. I'm used to baking the base for like 15-20 minutes, until slightly browned, to give it more stability. It's up to you.
(for the filling)
roughly 1kg of cheese (I went with mascarpone, as it's my favorite, but you can also use cream cheese, ricotta, or a mix of these)
130g coconut flakes
200 g white chocolate
Whisk together the cheese and the coconut. You'll need to melt the chocolate before adding it. **Be super careful. I did not realize that the amount of sugar in white chocolate would make it burn so easily if melted directly in a pan. So use bain-marie (aka put your pot inside another pot with hot water) and a low fire. Stir continuously while melting, then gradually incorporate into the mix.
(for the topping)
100g white chocolate
Coconut cream
White chocolate, again, needs to be melted and mixed with the coconut cream. Now, I don't have coconut cream, so I made do following this recipe for it using coconut milk. I'm really not sure how much I used, hence the absence of quantity, though probably about half of what they make in the linked recipe. Add the topping on top (duh). I actually let the base and the filling refrigerate for about an hour, which actually helped the two creams remains separate. Decorate with coconut flakes and leave to sit in the fridge for at least couple more hours before serving. :)
Disclaimer - This is definitely on the sweeter side, so yeah. Beware of that and consume responsibly.
