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Girlpower & my ass

lotje

Lotje Deelman was editor-in-chief of ELLE Eten, has been working for Allerhande for almost 15 years, and worked behind the scenes on television programmes such as MasterChef, Worsten van Babel On Tour and De Nieuwe Lekkerbek. She ate pig’s trotter with Anthony Bourdain and flirted with Gordon Ramsay in his Aston Martin. Lotje is the (co-)author of more than ten cookbooks and, in her kitchen in the Drenthe countryside, is never too squeamish to set something on fire. On FavorFlav, Lotje vents weekly about what occupies her. This time: millennials and girl power.

Foto van culinair journalist Lotje Deelman

I’m not particularly fond of women. Not that men are perfect—in fact, quite the opposite—but I don’t have that sisterhood feeling. I’ve always been baffled by girls’ nights. I almost always find it more fun with men around. I think I’m the most fun version of myself when there’s a man nearby, but mostly it’s simply that I don’t really feel that bond with all the other women on the planet.

Until I came across Iliza. I was actually looking for food. On Netflix, that is. But I just can’t bring myself to watch Somebody Feed Phil because he looks so incredibly uncool. And by now I’ve also seen all the irritating Chef’s Tables (Dominique Crenn, also a woman, definitely no sister of mine), I feel like I now know David Chang and all his friends and his mother and everyone else around him inside out, and I really can’t stand the 1980s décor of The Final Table.

Elder Millennial

And because I’m also a little tired of all those serial killers, confession tapes, criminal minds and killer women (not exactly a warm bond with them either, killer women), I ended up with the stand-ups. And there was Iliza, who caught my attention with the title of her show: Elder Millennial. You know. Millennials. The ones who think you spell market with a q, who think they have to approve everything you say with “true”, who hang around on food blogs endlessly (or—god forbid—even have one themselves), and who have never heard of non-shared dining.

Iliza is a kind of completely deranged Miljuschka-who-can’t-cook on steroids. With unstoppable energy, she says every deranged twist and voice in her head out loud. When she painted a picture of herself angrily pounding her fists on her thighs and butt, hoping they would immediately disappear (resulting in bruises and even more anger), I thought: yes! That’s me!

Complaining about being too fat

At a bad moment, in a bad mood, and no more than twice a year. An act I had never shared before, somewhat shamefacedly, but encouraged by the fact that it apparently turns out to be something very female and universal, I’m doing so now anyway. The only thing I think all women have in common is complaining about being too fat. And the fact that this complaining is completely unrelated to their weight, age, character, race, shape, figure, religion or IQ shows how large that common denominator is. And how crazy, for that matter.

So the first thing I do when I catch myself having one of those bruised-moment episodes is not try to talk about it to bond with other women, but silently seek out a gym. Because I really love dumbbells, barbells and leg lifts. I usually don’t get much thinner from them, but I do feel thinner. And I find muscle soreness almost as delicious as pasta and butter. I only forget every so often that I love working out, and I don’t have that problem with pasta and butter. There, I hear you thinking, so this whole story does end up being about food after all. True, a millennial would say.

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