CHICAGO—Stepping back to appreciate the moment during a relaxing “couple’s night in,” local boyfriend Lucas Graham, 31, exclaimed Tuesday to his girlfriend, Sarah, “Cooking together is so fun!” before resuming his practice of meticulously correcting every single one of her knife cuts. “I mean, how nice is this? Just you, me, and some…unevenly julienned carrots, c’mon, Sarah, you really have to square off that carrot first,” said Graham, who filled the romantic evening with such sparkling repartee as “you’re mashing the tomato, not cutting it,” “if that’s how you’re going to slice the garlic, you may as well just use the press,” and “try and use use a medium dice on the onions, like I said before,” often punctuating his interjections by physically guiding his girlfriend’s hands. “I love when it’s just you and me and a nice homemade meal. Oh, you should be using a paring knife for that. Wait, what are you doing? Curl your fingers back, Sarah, you’ll cut yourself and bleed all over the only shallots I could find in this neighborhood.” At press time, Graham was heard reflecting on how the couple should cook together more often while scraping his girlfriend’s work into the trash so that he could start from scratch.

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