Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 16, 2020

My sister and I have a saying. 

Actually, we have a lot of sayings. Most of them (and by “most”, I mean 98.99 per cent) are quotes from the shows and movies we’ve seen 17,000 times over. It has got to the point that, whenever we chat on the phone, we have the same conversation about the ratio of pop culture quotes to original dialogue. About 20 minutes in, we wonder how many shows we’ve quoted. We then wonder if we could go five minutes without a quote and then, inevitably, we fail said challenge.

I mean, if we were quoting Shakespeare or Lord Byron, it would sound as if we were very cultured, intelligent young women. But because it’s quotes from works including Laguna Beach, The Simpsons and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (plus the commercials included on the video because the copy we watched so many times was recorded off the TV by Grandma), it makes us sound like a pair of airheaded dingbats. Even though, back in the day, Shakespeare and poetry were once popular culture smut. Makes you think, huh? Like, who the heck gets to decide that a movie about a 17-year-old who fumbles fabulously through an executive role in fashion to save an entire company all while maintaining a relationship with a chilli dog delivery guy is less worthy than a play about two horny teenagers hooking up?!

Anyway, this isn’t the column I sat down to write.

What I was trying to say is that we have this saying in our sisterhood known as “grate the cheese”. 

It’s a phrase we use to describe the menial tasks one does in the kitchen while someone more domineering assumes the lead and becomes head chef. 

It came about from my sister and I cooking things together. I can’t say for certain it was born from a risotto mission, but given our love for the dish and its need for grated cheese, I think it’s a safe bet.

I have what some might describe as a bold confidence when it comes to the kitchen. Others might describe it as dictatorial. Some would say I’m independent, others would say I’m egomaniacal. It depends on who you ask.

Suffice to say that when I know what I’m doing, I’ll go ahead and do it. And so I tend to dominate when in the kitchen. 

The saying came from my sister asking me what she could do to help prepare the dish. I wanted to control the size of the mushroom chunks. Dicing the onion and bacon and sautéing it with just the right amount of butter and oil was something that would take too much explaining. And knowing when to add the rice was something only I knew. 

But there was cheese to be grated. It was something I didn’t feel like doing and something that was had to screw up (I mean, if someone grated so hard their finger skin was mixed in with the strands of Mild Tasty, that would be huge problem, but most people know when to stop). So offered her the job of grating the cheese. 

When we make other dishes together, the vibe is the same, even if there’s no cheese to be grated. I command all the difficult, fun to do jobs for myself, especially if the success of the dish relies on the adequate completion of these steps. My sister will get the less critical jobs. 

This seems to be the way it always goes with us, even when she has started cooking and I join in offering to help. Despite my noble intentions to act as the sous chef, somehow, she ends up grating the metaphorical cheese. And while “I’ll grate the cheese” sounds like it only applies to the kitchen, it can be adapted to pretty much any situation where there can be a leader and… an assistant. Decorating halls for parties. Jazzing up a garden. Planning a hen’s weekend. There’s so many uses for the saying.

But I’m trying to better at stepping back, relinquishing control and being the cheese grater myself.

And because grating the cheese is applicable to so many situations, I think I’m going to take her up on the off-handed, not-sure-if-she’s-serious offer for her to have a go at writing my column one week. She can do all the praise-grabbing fun bits and I’ll do the thankless, behind the scenes task of sub-editing it. 

This is a huge amount of faith I’ll put in her, demonstrating the trust I have in her abilities. And I think it shows how much I’m maturing as a person, you know? Like, it proves that I CAN step aside and let someone take the wheel. That I’m relaxed. That I’m not an unrelenting control freak.

Of course, I’m never going to let her take charge of adding stock to risotto though. I can’t trust her with that.