I just don't understand

[matthewdaly]

Something happened to me twice over the weekend that has been puzzling me, and with any luck it will happen again so I want to be better prepared and you know what they say about all knowledge.

My parents had their annual "start of summer" party that coincidentally celebrates their birthdays on Saturday, and a friend of theirs from out of town who was not able to attend that party came to our family dinner on Sunday. I had made two pies for the party and we had the leftovers at the second event. The pies came out fine, meeting my hopes that I would finally after all of these years be able to create some form of "potluck" food on demand.

Anyway, at each of these events, a woman (let's say aged 55-68 for the sake of argument) came up to me and asked "How did you make this?" And I, being shy and unprepared, gave a rambling 20-30 second overview of the recipe, and it was clear that she was disengaged. In one case, it became a briefly teachable moment about how I really don't need to freeze the butter to make the crust.

But I'm still faced with the impression that this was a Deborah Tannen moment and these women were trying to establish a supportive network and wound up mystified that I would presume to lecture a mature woman about how to make a banana cream pie. So, if this is a conversation that you (or the person next to you) has been in, what sorts of responses would have been more in line with the original intent of the question?

Comments

[matthewdaly]

I've seen women speak effortlessly about cooking all my life, so I assumed that there was just a playbook that I needed to order. It's vaguely disconcerting that there isn't a formulaic response that means "I would welcome any conversation on the subject of my pie. What in particular interests you?" Real life needs a Stayman Convention.

Is there a "Where did you buy the meat" joke? It's not ringing any bells.

[elissaann]

Ask a man, "where did you buy this meat?" and he tells you which store. Ask a woman, and she says, "why? what's wrong with it?"

Like many such jokes, I think there is a tiny kernel of truth in it, in that woman of my generation were brought up to analyze things to death, and men were brought up to be a little more direct.

As for conversational conventions, everyone seems to play by a different rulebook.