I'm always so torn with my who can cook headcanons.
Like I love fics where Robin is a absolute disaster in the kitchen and he's like permanently banned from it and Finney and his family make fun of him for it. But his disaster is like will burn water if left unattended.
And Finney self teaching himself how to cook since Terrence stopped doing it just makes sense you know? Being able to feed Gwen is like a top priority for him.
But then Robin being able to cook and Finney just being bad at it makes sense too. But just bad in an everything comes out nasty way. like I love that Robin will come over and Gwen immediately demands a meal and Finney's embarrassed af but secretly happy like aww
I CANT CHOOSE !!!
i hope op doesnāt mind me butting in here but i have had so many thoughts about this and im such a certified yapper that i can never just keep them to myself <\\\3
of the belief that being from a mexican household, it is impossible to not learn how to cook because 9/10 times that is our love language. so if his mother wasnāt cooking, it was his uncle, and if it wasnāt his uncle, it was his grandmother, and if it wasnāt his grandmother itās all of them yelling at each other for being in the way but complaining if someone leaves. so ernesto and robin were absolutely put to work squinting at the consistency of the masa, chopping bell peppers and chiles, and grinding spices in the mortar since they could form syllables.
but it was never a necessity.
cooking was to say i love you, iām sorry, or iām proud of the work you do. so maybe they cooked dinner when they accidentally pissed their mom off, or when robin got suspended from school AGAIN, or when ernesto cracked his glasses when money was tight. but also being in a mexican household means that no matter how hard you try, itāll never taste like momās. so while i think both ernesto and robin can absolutely cook, neither of them particularly enjoy it, because it always tastes like unspoken apologies and messages theyāre leaving for someone else.
on the other hand, i think in the blake household where thereās so much volatility, that dinner was almost like a lifeline. they unfortunately did not inherit many recipes outside of the home magazines stuffed in the mailbox, so it was definitely dicey at first. honestly there was probably a lot of cold sandwiches and hamburger helper the first few year after their mom died.
but gwen and finney both seemed to take heart in taking care of their dad, and absolutely with each other, so i think that, even if the first couple of years werenāt great, there was a lot of heart in learning to make real dinners. before their dad got drunk, and had enough of the day to push past a hangover, that was probably the most peaceful time they had. personal hc that the arellano family definitely had finney over for dinner once or twice, and he definitely tried to recreate the recipes at home.
robin wasnāt too much help in that, if you ask him how much seasoning heāll stare at you and say, āuntil it feels right.ā
finney who is a math nerd and because of this probably does much better at baking wants to strangle him lowkey.
but it also forces him to practice and get a natural feel for cooking, as opposed to robin who never really had to think too much about it.
this is also the kicker, but i am of the firm belief that you cannot love someone and not absorb part of who they are. you cannot be with someone whoās love language is cooking and still burn water, because half of love is effort.
all this to say, i believe that they both can absolutely cook. i think finney had to work at it a little longer to get some seasoning in his palette, but i think it mattered to him and gwen more to get there. i think theyāre definitely better at baking, but they also see cooking as less of a message and more of a way of maintaining normalcy that makes it more enjoyable for them.
i think that finney probably gets the closest to mrs. arellanoās food, not out of experience or skill, but because of the care behind the plate. so robin definitely prefers his cooking, but they also always cook together. sometimes robin will pipe in to add more seasoning but he never specifies and has to run when finney threatens him with the cast iron.
robin is also horrible at baking because he never thinks the amount sounds right and will add a little more and completely throw off the recipe. heās lowkey pretty good at decorating though like, his aesthetics are a bit unmatched.
HOWEVER robin is also much more likely to get distracted in the kitchen and burn something. char gives it flavor but sometimes that man is chomping on a piece of coal. he also eats things way past expiration and scares people, HE DOES NOT WASTE FOOD and sometimes finney has to wrestle two week old chicken from him out of fear that his significant other will simply drop dead from food poisoning (which he somehow never gets???)
im so sorry op this was a lot of yapping to say a whole lot of nothing but i love domesticity so much and they deserve to have so many cooking together experiences UGH </3
Reina I'm sorry I look like such a fangirl to you I bet but every time u post I agree with everything u say u are awesome
my dear, we stand in nothing but mutual appreciation !!! š«¶š«¶š«¶
