We went on a trip this weekend and saw my father for the first time in nearly four years, as well as our other family.
We met at a new Tuscan restaurant owned by my adoptive family and they were all there when we arrived. Surprise! I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see everyone after many years. We usually only see each other at weddings or in Florence.
When I met my husband, he was living in a man cave and only had a 72 oz. Dr. Pepper in his frig, plus individually wrapped string cheese. In the freezer was one boxed lasagne bought by his mother several months before. There were several string cheese wrappers on the carpet between the frig and his mega-computer.
Now he critiques my new dishes and tells me they always taste better the third time I make them. He likes feta and goat cheese. He loves my chicken saltimbocca with proscuitto and Fontina, and my spaghetti alla carbonara.
This weekend, he ordered the arugula salad! Five years ago I made him a “wedge” salad of iceberg with Thousand Island as a joke and he loved it. But now I have him eating healthy greens! Greens that taste like something!
He loves my soups and stews in the winter and even my version of our family’s “cold dinner” in the summer with heirloom tomatoes, potato salad, hard-cooked eggs, good fresh bread and ham.
And he says I created a food snob. I have a photo of him on the frig. He’s four years old, making toast. It only took him 30 years to learn how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. He’s a physicist and software engineer so is capable of doing so, but never cared when he was single and would rather go to local restaurants instead of cooking for himself. In fact, what he brought to our kitchen was one blue colander and some Corelle plates that his mother gave him to take to college.
Since we moved and got all our stuff out of storage after three years, the Corelle went back to his mother for the grandkids and the colander, who knows. I probably gave it away as I have at least eight more. If you want to talk about recycling, this family does it in a big way. And an important way, recycling for generations.
Now that we are in America’s Dairyland, he likes more than Monterey Jack cheese. I grew up on sharp Canadian cheddar and he now likes Wisconsin’s 4 year-old sharp. Amazing. Food snob, indeed. I did good. Dee
Cooking with Dee 