When Wes and I first got married, I was committed to being a good cook. I had this vague idea of the kind of wife I wanted to be, one who went to school all day and then came home and made a fantastic dinner for her husband. When asked what was for dinner, I would wipe my hands with a kitchen towel and straighten my apron and reply, “Chicken Bouillabaise with saffron rice and a market berry compote for dessert.”
I’d be all poised and unruffled, producing meal after glorious meal in a spotless kitchen while my adoring husband looked on and sipped a martini and thought about how happy he was to have married me.
Part of this rosy little fantasy came true. Even though Wes never did pick up a taste for martinis, I did become a pretty decent cook. I’m adventurous, and will attempt to cook anything once. This led to some epic successes with just enough failures thrown in there to keep me humble.
It also led to Wes and I both gaining around 20 pounds our first year of marriage, but that’s another post entirely.
When I graduated and got a job, I had a lot less time to spend on cooking meals. The more time I spent at the office, the less time I spent in the kitchen. Our fare got simpler.
Then, we got poor and so did our food quality. Did you know that you can feed two adults two meals a day for four days in a row with just one pound of ground beef, a can of olives, a box of pasta noodles, and a jar of pasta sauce? And that they will get heartily sick of eating the same freaking thing over and over and OVER?!
Then, I got pregnant. And stopped cooking. Because food (and especially food SMELLS) are abhorrent when you’re pregnant. Wes took over the cooking, and we discovered he’s a dynamite chef in his own right.
When Aidan was born, we were all optimistic I’d get back in the kitchen like a good housewife. That…Didn’t happen. Did you know it’s hard to cook when you’ve got a baby to care for? Babies are no respecters of menus. Neither are toddlers, now that I think about it.
I’ve recently ventured back to cooking. It all started with homemade chicken noodle soup and then…I couldn’t stop. Eggplant parmesan, borscht, roasted chicken…I’m living in my frigging kitchen and I’m exhausted. And well fed. And happy. But so frigging tired of chopping vegetables!
But that’s just how I roll. Feast or famine. Couch potato or gym rat. Writing novels or not at all.
Sometimes I feel like I need a moderator for my past-times. Then again, let’s be honest. I’d probably never listen to him/her anyway.
Last Friday was National Chocolate Cake Day, did you know that? I didn’t until I was cruising Twitter Friday afternoon. All it took was two innocent tweets and the damage was done: CRAVING.
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