When we get back to Zayaan's place, Karim says, "Should we make dinner now?"

"Yeah" Zayaan responds. "what are you feeling?"

"How about steak with mashed potatoes?"  Karim suggests.

"Yeah and we can add some pasta  too."

"Some beer on the side would be nice too" Karim adds on.

"Yes!" Zayaan agrees excitingly.  

Karim leaves the kitchen to do something.

Zayaan takes the steak and starts washing it.  Then he takes out a bunch of spices from Karim's cabinet and starts seasoning the steak. I feel so impressed that he knows how to do all this.  He is mixing the steak with his bare hands as he asks, "You wanna know where I learned how to do this?" 

"Where?" I ask.  

"I learned in high school. We had a cooking class."

"Oh I wish I took a cooking class" This would have been a really convenient class for me to take to learn some cooking. No wonder he is so good at cooking with all that practice from school. 

"Also my mom teaches me how to cook sometimes with her recipes".

"Oh that's nice" I respond. It is so nice that he bonds with his mom through cooking. My brothers would never do that.

"Do you know how to cook?" Zayaan asks me.

"Uh..." I just smile back at him awkwardly not saying anything. I don't wanna answer his question because it's a bad answer. I don't know how to cook. Zayaan just smiles back down at me. I guess maybe he doesn't completely buy it. I didn't really give him a straight answer.

Karim looks amused. I guess he knows that if I had known how to cook I would have said it. Did he just not expect much from me with the way I act like an immature little girl?

"Here wash this saucepan," Zayaan says to me.

I start washing the saucepan with the washing scrubber thing in the sink. He seems unimpressed by the way I wash it. I think Karim is back now and somewhat sees what is going on. My attempt at washing the saucepan wasn't so great either. I think you can kind of tell I am not used to washing dishes by how slowly I tried to wash the pan and with such weak motions.

"It is okay you can just wash it with water he says," surprisingly. I thought everyone washed everything with soap.

He takes the saucepan and fills it with some water and places it on the stove. Karim disappears  into his room again. 

Then he looks in the cupboard and finds a packet of instant mashed potatoes with vegetables. Wow, I didn't even know they had that! I need to get this for myself.

He takes the packet and pours it into the pot. 

"Do you think that's enough water?" Zayaan asks me?

"Uh..." I look at the pot for a long time having no idea if that is enough water in proportion to the mashed potatoes' power. "I think so?" I say

"No, that's not enough!" he says, surprised that I was not able to tell. Then he takes the pot and turns the tap water on and pours more into the saucepan. Well, how was I supposed to know if that was enough or not? I never made instant mashed potatoes before. Unless this was more of a common thing to know than I thought. 

He takes a spoon and puts it in my hand, "Stir it" he says.

"Okay" so I take the spoon and start stirring the water and mashed potatoes together awkwardly and slowly with my hands, in awkward weak motions. 

He just looks at what I am doing in disbelief. He seems like he has lost his patience watching my failed attempt at stirring the ingredients.

"Stir it girl!" he exclaims and then he grabs the spoon out of my hand and starts stirring it with a lot more power and properly than I did, holding the spoon properly too with better stirring motions.

As Karim gets back, Zayaan exasperates, "I can't believe you don't know how to cook! I am a boy and I know how to cook" with a  mixed look of annoyance and shock. 

I am surprised he is bringing up the gender thing. It does not seem like him. It is weird. In some ways, it seems like he is not ist but in other ways, it does seem like he does believe in traditional gender roles. I did not even know it was that important to him that the girl knew how to cook. I thought he didn't care. I remember he used to snap message me saying that it's okay if I can't cook. He will do all the cooking and spoiling me. Now I am shocked that he is upset and surprised that I don't know how to cook at all?? And he sees it as a girl thing? So what if he is a boy and I am a girl, we basically lived about the same lifestyle up until now, both being full-time college students and being expected to work on our careers... Does he think that for some reason, I would be more likely to know how to cook because I am a girl?

Karim seems amused but not that surprised. He has a smile on his face like he just accepted that I can't cook.

"Okay you can just go sit down at the table," Zayaan says. It seems like he has given up on trying to get me to cook.

It feels like an ironic scene. I am just sitting at the table watching while these two all guys, a white guy and a brown guy cook for me. Well all of us. Karim takes out a pan and starts frying the steak and they both discuss if it is being overdone or not. The food looks so good. I can not wait to try it. Once they are done, they leave it and Karim says, "Save a little for my dad. He likes steak" and takes a portion out and puts it on a separate plate for his dad.

They had completely given up on me helping them to cook. Did they really see me as that useless in the kitchen like I would not be able to help them at all that they just had me sitting around not even washing anything while they did all the cooking? I felt so taken care of like a child. It was fun watching them cook like they were having fun and being a good team. You could tell they were close. Zayaan even knew what everything was in Karim's kitchen. They seemed so into cooking, trying to make sure everything was perfect. Reminds me of my brothers when they cook steak together now. Guys sure do love their steak don't they. 

"You know what, I will go get the alcohol now while you start prepping the food," Karim says.

He grabs his keys and leaves the house leaving just us two, in the kitchen.