Bill & I dated in high school and were married two years later. We THOUGHT we knew a lot about each other. We thought we could take the plunge and make it work. We thought we would live happily ever after. However, we found out in our first year of marriage that we didn't know EVERYTHING. Our expectations were slightly off. Especially in the food arena.
Case #1: Meatloaf.
Bill was in the US Army and worked long, long hours. We had one car and I was pregnant with Jeremiah so we decided I would stay home and take care of the house. I cooked and cleaned and tried to be the perfect Suzy Homemaker. I had picked up some cooking skills from my mom before I left home-- but they were not great. In between mac-n-cheese and Hamburger Helper meals, I tried to duplicate some of my mom's home cooking. One night, I served my mom's version of meatloaf. I loaded up our plates and put them on the table. When Bill saw his plate (and his slices of meatloaf), he was silent. Then he said, "Where's the egg?" I said, "It's mixed in with the hamburger and bread crumbs!" (Duh!) Then he explained how HIS mom used to make meatloaf. My mother-in-law is a genuine Southern woman, raised in Arkansas. She cooked with a can of lard on the stove, whipped up meals with lots of meat & potatoes and did a lot of things in the kitchen that I had never seen before (I grew up in the Pacific Northwest). LIttle did I know that her version of meatloaf contained hard-boiled eggs inside. This was pre-Martha Stewart, but her intention was that every time you took a slice of meatloaf, there was a slice of hard-boiled egg staring at you on the plate. Bill grew up with this meatloaf-- therefore, mine was "lacking" the hidden surprises. I personally can't stand hard-boiled eggs so this concept grossed me out! Let's just say that to this very day-- we don't make meatloaf very often because we don't agree on our versions.
Case #2: Spaghetti
Spaghetti is the "poor-man's pasta of choice", so I am sure I was trying to make this in our first year of marriage too. Come on! HOW can you go wrong making spaghetti??? Well, same scenario applies. I had cleaned and cooked all day in order to have a meal on the table for my man when he came home. He washed up, sat down at the table, looked at his plate of spaghetti and said, "WHAT is this???" I replied, "Spaghetti, of course!" He was dumb-founded. He took a couple of bites and then he said he just couldn't eat it that way. "WHAT way?", I asked. He grumbled that I "ruined" it. I am sure we had a big fight about it but this is the back-story: his mom always made spaghetti where you cook the noodles and drain them in a strainer. She cooks her sauce and meatballs and sets them aside. She prepares the plate with a mound of (cold) noodles, topped with the sauce and meatballs. Something like this:
That is NOT how my mom made spaghetti! My dad loved spaghetti so my mom made it often. And her version of spaghetti involved mixing the noodles and the sauce and the meatballs all together in an electric skillet pan before you served it. It was hot and all mixed up and I thought that was delicious. My version looks like this:
Unlike the meatloaf example, we continue to eat spaghetti when the mood strikes us. We tried it Bill's (rather his mom's) way for the first few years. We tried it my way a couple of times to see if Bill could truly learn to like it. Somewhere along the way, we developed the perfect compromise over spaghetti. Bill cooks the noodles separate and they sit in a strainer in the sink (uh oh, sounds like his mom's way!). He makes the sauce and meatballs (you can bet that they will be spicier than his mom's) in another pan. Before he loads his plate (his mom's way)-- he takes 1/2 the noodles from the strainer and adds 1/2 the sauce & meatballs from the other pan into a frying pan. He purposely mixes my half all together, tossing and turning them until they are perfect and plates it my mom's way.
Now that is love. :)
But wait! What does this story have to do with my title? We made spaghetti for dinner a few nights ago. I was in charge of the noodles; Bill was in charge of the sauce & meatballs. We were both cranky after long days at work and were not talking much. He silently retrieved the frying pan and started to mix my portion together. I laughed and hugged him for this sweet little gesture. He said, "You know, if I knew then what I know now... THIS could have been a deal-breaker!" I opened my mouth in horror and threw my hands up in the air. "A DEAL-BREAKER??? Our spaghetti was a potential deal-breaker?!?!?!" And we both laughed. And laughed some more. I guess it is a GOOD THING we didn't know everything about each other when we got married.
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