Cooking Is Love

This time, it started when my husband pulled sausage patties out of the freezer. Okay. Fry up a little sausage, scramble some eggs. That's not too bad. Twelve minutes, right? I went to read the Sunday paper, then took a shower.

An hour later, the remains of two dozen oranges were in the sink. Juice glasses had been located from some archived cupboard, rinsed, and set on the table. Peppers, ham, and onions had been diced and sauteed and were awaiting their next assignment. The sausage patties were keeping up their tans in the oven. No egg had yet been cracked. My husband was busy--focused. He's a great cook, but sometimes I want him for something else.

Nevertheless, it is sick and wrong to be mad at a husband for cooking too much. I know that. I haven't checked with Miss Manners, but it is probably also rude. So, I tried a light touch. "You just want to make sure we have one good meal this week, right?" I asked. I could say this because he was catching a plane, right after church, for a week-long business trip.

I was also poking fun at my own cooking, which never seemed necessary until I found out why he turned up his nose at my white-rice-and-meat-sauce-made-with-canned-soup dinners.

Paul knows every herb and all their family members. He tosses cinnamon into Mexican food and adorns perfectly good casseroles with things with shells and legs. And all one-hundred-percent correctly. When Paul says, "Dinner's ready--I just have to do vegetables," it does NOT mean we will be eating in five minutes. Paul cooks vegetables I never realized weren't weeds. There has to be at least one cruciferous and one deeply-colored at every meal. If we're eating frozen peas or beans, you can be sure they were just an afterthought, added because it seemed something green was still needed.

And no vegetable comes without a sauce, complement, seasoning, or twist. Or combination of the above. No meat is ever just browned with salt and pepper. No pan is left behind. Every meal has several dishes. Every dish has several ingredients. Every ingredient has been through several processes. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives--how long until we eat?

Many meals are served after the children are weeping or sleeping. When one of my birthday dinners was ready, Paul had to come into the bedroom and wake me up for it. He seldom repeats a meal unless I specifically mention I like it. The man hungers for variety. If he cooked chicken using seven steps and ten ingredients, he will be sure to use eight different steps and twelve new ingredients next time. Frequently, I beg him: let's do something simple. He nods, then proceeds with pumpkin soup with chilled, marinated, seasoned pears, anyway. And that's just the appetizer.

I can tell that the food he cooks tastes better than most food. He can chop spinach so small we don't recognize it in the creamy bacon-flavored dish he serves. Frankly, though, I don't fret when the butter didn't brown exactly right. Paul's taste buds, I believe, have their own little taste buds.

To be fair, I benefit. When I wanted to try a diet that forbade most of the things I commonly ate--such as potatoes, corn, carrots, and sugar, Paul found five hundred ways to cook the items left ON the list to cut down on the boredom. I like chocolate? My birthday cake is made with the most expensive, richest chocolate available, and not from any store I ever heard of. I like pepper? Pepper steak with the biggest chunks of pepper and salt I ever saw, like pepper and salt ore. My mom makes the world's best pies? He learns to replicate her crust. Whole grains are better for us? Soon, he is making our own more nutritious pasta.

So I made my little, rather clever comment, and he turned to me. His half-smile meant I wasn't exactly right, and he actually had been aware of my presence in the house the whole time. Then I got it. What he had carried out--and always extends as far as he can--his cooking--is his supreme act of love.