Since baby girl left for college, hubby has pretty much taken over kitchen duty.

I still jump in every so often, especially around holidays because I like to bake, but he has pretty much been whipping up dishes for the last five years.

I often jest to folks how nice it is to “have a wife” and surprisingly hubby hasn’t scolded me for my wisecrack. My guess is it’s because he really enjoys cooking.

Initially, he started out preparing meals from one of those companies that send everything in a box.

I know he liked experimenting with all the recipes that were sent, but I just couldn’t handle it. I’m a picky eater. Always have been and imagine I always will be.

So needless to say there were a few nights I was pulling out the peanut butter and jelly.

Thankfully, he gave up on those meal kits, but he was still intent on testing out new dishes.

After each and every meal he would ask me what I thought and I decided to be honest because in addition to being finicky, I also have a delicate stomach. While he can eat just about anything with no ill effects, I cannot.

Eventually, he hit on some dishes I really liked and my stomach could tolerate.

In fact, because I don’t have to have a variety in my cuisine there are one or two of those meals I could eat every night, like his grilled chicken Caesar salad.

He has also mastered homemade pizza that he cooks on the grill.

Hubby knows how obsessive-compulsive I am about “my” kitchen, so just about everything he cooks is done on the grill.

One of his latest undertakings has been the use of a Sous vide when he cooks a steak. A Sous vide is a machine that uses a heated metal coil to warm water to a constant temperature. The meat is put into a vacuum-sealed bag and is cooked to a very precise temperature in a water bath.

After the steak has reached the desired temperature he throws it on the grill for a few minutes.

I was totally skeptical about him using a Sous vide, but let me just say, I have never in my life eaten a better steak. You can almost cut it with a fork it is so tender.

In fact, when my son was home for a visit with his girlfriend, hubby prepared steak using his Sous vide.

The girlfriend had not told us beforehand she didn’t like steak, but when she took a bite, she couldn’t believe how good it tasted.

Needless to say, when they came for Christmas, guess what she requested? Steak.

I think of all those years I cooked, it just seemed like another one of my chores. But for hubby, it seems more like a creative way to express himself.

I thought about this for a while and for the first time realized many of the restaurants in Vicksburg, if not most, have male chefs. They are all very talented and each has unique ways of expressing themselves through their menus.

For fear of leaving someone out, I certainly won’t make a list of those guys. However, I will say, one of the things I’ve always said I like most about Vicksburg is the variety of culture and creativity the River City offers. Fortunately, for us, this also applies to the culinary arts.

And those male cooks in the kitchen fashion some mighty fine food.