Try a cooking class for couples on Friday

UPDATE: This cooking class is now full, according to Divine Dinners' Facebook page.

When Christy Leonard met George Etheredge five years ago, she found love, affection and onions.

"I didn't like onions for the longest time," said Leonard, 25.

The Columbus couple is now engaged -- a milestone that's given Leonard both a lifelong commitment and a heightened tolerance for onions. With limits.

"They have to be cooked and there can't be huge chunks of them," she said.

Ah, the joys of cooking together.

It's how Leonard learned to handle onions. As a couple begins to merge their lives, "what's for dinner?" becomes a critical question.

Will you forego grocery shopping and dine out during most of the week? Will you cook dinners at home? If that's the case, who does most of the work?

Sometimes, the answers come easily.

Leonard said she and her fiancé share responsibilities in the kitchen about 50/50. "That's something that I've always felt really strongly about," she said. "We're doing this thing together, just like a marriage."

For couples who haven't mastered the art of bonding over measuring spoons, help is on the way.

Divine Dinners in Columbus on Friday will host a couples' cooking class and date night. Guests will learn how to make paella, a popular Spanish dish.

"It's definitely a hands-on kind of class. It's different than just going out to dinner," said Lori Cooper, personal chef and owner of Divine Dinners. "It's also a way to get to know other people."

Cooper cited a growing interest in entertaining and supper clubs as factors contributing to couples' willingness to cook at home.

Yet the process isn't flawless. Particularly when you're cooking for just two people, it's easy to trap yourselves in a single list of go-to recipes.

"We get stuck in a rut," Cooper said.

The Internet, especially Pinterest's enticing collection of recipes, has helped curb that problem. But when quality isn't a challenge, quantity sometimes is,

After all, how many times can two people eat the same leftovers without going crazy?

"Three is my max," said Leonard, who is not affiliated with the aforementioned cooking class.

If you watch enough Food Network shows, it's easy to envision cooking together as a fun romantic diversion. But what happens when you throw kids into the mix?

Jeremy Knipe and his wife Samantha don't divide cooking responsibilities as evenly as Leonard and her fiancé. "It's about 75/25 in favor of Samantha," said Knipe, 32. "Typically her schedule is more favorable to help prepare food for the kids during the week."

The Columbus couple has four children, three of whom are from Jeremy's previous marriage. Samantha is currently pregnant. They've been married for about three and a half years.

Deciphering the cooking setup was somewhat difficult at the relationship's earlier stages, Knipe said.

"What happened then would be we cooked for the kids, had them eat, and then we ended up figuring out what we wanted to eat. Over time, that gets exhausting. We all are on the same page now, and some foods we just learned to like," said Knipe, who is also not affiliated with the cooking class.

Can they still make kitchen time bonding time? Surprisingly, yes.

Even when Jeremy's not directly preparing a dinner, he's often present during the preparation process.

"I'm usually in and out talking with her, then helping the kids with schoolwork or other things they are getting into. It actually does make for good conversation because we are both there. No TV, just us," he said.

Sonya Sorich, 706-571-8516.

This story was originally published August 12, 2012 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Try a cooking class for couples on Friday."