“How are you making them?”
This question almost pissed me off as much as when he said, 2 days prior, “Can you pick me up a potato when you are out?”
I cook. I actually, really enjoy cooking and I am good at it. I am no great chef, I am not some culinary wizard, but I can cook a damn good meal and have everything finish at the same time. The Hub, he can cook also. He cooks a pretty good breakfast. He has cooked dinners, and they are good. He is not so good at having everything done at the same time, but he just needs some practice.
I prepare all the meals for my family. Breakfast is usually very easy, and requires, at the most, a toaster and/or a pan for waffles, eggs, precooked sausage, pancakes, french toast or cereal. I prepare breakfast for the kids. The Hub is usually long gone when the kids are having breakfast. The only thing left from him is his dirty breakfast pan and dishes. Lunch is very easy since it is just me and Little One. Little One LOVES noodle soup, pb&j and bologna and cheese, easy stuff. He used to be so much more difficult only because he had a food sensitivity to rice and oats.... I know! But for the first 2.5 years of his life if he had anything with rice or oats in them he would projectile vomit, while having diarrhea at the same time and then sleep for an hour. It was scary and an extremely rare problem known as FPIES. (Food Protein Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome) But that is a whole other blog.
Dinner. Dinner is the one thing that I love to cook and serve. It is also the one meal that causes me the most angst and frustration. One major problem I have is during the prep of dinner, I usually have First Born, Little One and Dog, up my ass.
They want snacks.... “No, I am making dinner.”
They want drinks, “Fine, but only water or milk.”
They want me to put in another dvd, “Just watch what you are watching now!”
Little One needs me to wipe him. “You are getting to be a big boy and you need to do that yourself. WASH YOUR HANDS!”
I tend to get into a zone when cooking. I like the challenge of doing as much prep work so that when the actual cooking starts, I can jump right in. I also love crock pot meals. They are usually very tasty and I love that they cook all day and make the house smell good. I make a damn good pot roast in the crock pot. I usually make the pot roast without potatoes because the boys don’t like potatoes. I pour the pot roast over egg noodles. That way I can leave some noodles plain and the boys will eat them that way.
The Hub has repeatedly asked why I do it this way, and I explain it to him.... every time. Mind you, he loves the pot roast, just wants it with potatoes. I have thrown potatoes in there before, just for him. But we rarely have potatoes in the house. We haven’t had pot roast in some time because we were trying to get away from red meat. But since then, I have found some good organic, grass fed beef, that I will cook on occasion. I prepped the pot roast early one Sunday morning. I chopped the veggies, crush the garlic, mix the tomato soup, Worcestershire sauce and mustard, then brown the meat before I put it in the pot. The Hub was right there in the kitchen with me. He asks, “Do we have any potatoes?” It took all I could not to stab him with a fork. “Nope,” I said. Then as the day went on and the yummy smells of the pot roast wafted throughout the house, I had to run out to a wellness seminar that my friend was doing. It was going to be gone for about an hour. As I was leaving, The Hub says, “Can you pick me up a potato while you are out?” My response was calm, cool and collected....“WHAT? Seriously, you want me to go buy you a fucking potato? I am making it with noodles!”
“What is wrong with getting me a potato? I don’t want you to do anything with it. I will nuke it and put the pot roast over it. What is the big deal?”, he answered with all the exasperation of my 9 year old.
I hated him so much right then. I seriously wanted to gouge out his eye balls. What the fuck do I cook for? No one appreciates it. My sons act as if I am poisoning them. Their reactions to new foods is comical. First Born always hated tying new food. Little One will eat anything you put in front of him, unless First Born is around. Then he usually takes his cues from his older brother. My husband likes my cooking. But it always pisses me off when he adds salt before even tasting it, or how he always has to have bread. And God forbid I make a meal without meat!
When I got home... with a potato.... he was sitting on the couch in front of the big screen that my extremely generous, parents got us for Christmas. He hardly ever watched TV, before this Christmas. Now I come home, the house is a mess, and he is watching TV. As much as I love the new TV, I hate it! As I was getting dinner ready, he started to say something about not being hungry. The look I gave him advised him otherwise. And yes, the mo-fo microwaved the potato and put his pot roast over it. Whatthefuckever!
A few days later, we were talking on the phone while he was at work. We were trying to coordinate a dinner time, when I told him that we were having pork chops. “How are you making them?” He asked. I did not like this question. I was going to bread them and bake them, but seriously did not want to tell him that. I felt he lost all privileges to know how I was going to make them. Especially if he had another suggestion as to how he wanted them prepared. He then said, “Can’t you just sauté them in a pan with a little oil?” Why, yes. Yes I can, if you want to eat the most bland, un-flavorful,non tasting, pork chop ever. He then informed me that he did not want it breaded. But breaded is the only way the boys will eat them. When we sat at dinner that night, and I handed him the pork chop that I made for him, not breaded. It was not good. I tried some recipe on allrecipes that seemed good, but it wasn’t. I was about to jump on him like a spider monkey if he asked for a breaded one. He sensed this. He did not ask.
I don’t know, maybe it is just me. But if someone was making my meals for me, on an almost daily basis, I would not suggest ways to cook it. I would say Thank You. Thank you for preparing my dinner, with love and care. Thank you for picking out the things that all of us like, so that we can sit together and eat. Thank you for taking the time and effort to consider what would make EVERYONE at the Friggin table happy. Thank you for not being selfish and only preparing foods you like. Thank you for considering the nutritional value of our meals. THANK YOU!
So the next time someone prepares you a meal. Just say, Thank You. And if you have suggestions for how to improve the meal, try them out on your own. Especially if you are dealing with a crazy wife who has only so much patience to go around.
Crazy Wife + Meal Preparations = "Thank You".
