Women Own the Kitchen - Dave Barry's Essay

Women Own the Kitchen

In Dave Barry's essay "Turkeys in the Kitchen," he explains his reasoning why he thinks men do not belong in the kitchen cooking, especially around the holidays. He tells about one of his thanksgiving where his wife and another lady worked perfectly in the kitchen while he and another husband were ordered to watch the kids. Even this was a hard task for Berry. He tells how men are not meant to be in the kitchen cooking and when they actually do something useful like make spaghetti, they should be praised. He gave another example of trying to help his wife by grabbing a pot, but no matter which one he grabbed it was the wrong one. Barry used a comic tone to prove that women are much more accustomed to being in the kitchen and cooking a holiday meal like on thanksgiving. It is more the woman's job than the man's to work in the kitchen.

"Most men make themselves as useful around the kitchen as an ill-trained Labrador retriever." Here Barry starts off by comparing men to a poorly trained dog. This shows that he doesn't believe men are capable of cooking a good meal for a whole family on Thanksgiving. This is true since women are supposed to be the ones cooking a majority of the time. "Glides in very casually and picks up exactly the right kitchen implement and starts doing exactly the right thing without receiving any instructions whatsoever." Barry is now comparing the women to the men in the kitchen. His wife knew exactly what to pick up and did the right thing with it as if it was her natural instinct. But to men, this would be considered a foreign language. Women are supposed to be the ones who know what to do with the kitchen utensils. As Barry and a friend try to help the ladies in the kitchen the politely push them away from the kitchen back to the living room, "Arlene's patient voice asking us to please keep an eye on the children. Which we try to do." The women know that the men are not capable of much in the kitchen, and would probably cause more of a problem than anything, so they give them another task, which is watching the kids. Even though this seems like a simple instruction, "keeping an eye on the children," the men some how find a way to screw it up by finding more important things to do like watch the Detroit Lions play football.

Already Barry proved that men should not be in the kitchen, but there are the rare times they are chosen to cook and when it does happen, they feel like they should be praised, "for which they expect to be praised as if they had developed, right here in the kitchen, a cure for heart disease." This is his opinion after making a meal of spaghetti. It is a far jump but this is how a man feels after cooking since they are not used to it. It would be like if a woman won the MVP award for the Super Bowl.

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