Tonight’s Dinner: Foot in Mouth

Last weekend, I made for dinner a recipe I’d found while trolling food blogs, one that sounded incredibly family friendly and sure to be enjoyed by all. And it looked ridiculously easy, so win win.

Well, it was a little more labor intensive than it first appeared, and it took a teeny bit longer to cook since I had to work in batches, and it needed just a smidgen more oil than prescribed. But it all came together, even if I did ultimately resemble that woman in the Rice Krispies treat commercial from back in the day, the one in which she throws flour on her face and adopts an exhausted look before serving the treats, only my exhaustion and flour spackle were real. So I dished it up.

I’m not sure if my Hub took a bite or just looked at the food, but he quickly stood up and went to the refrigerator, returned with a bottle of sweet dipping sauce. Mind you, this dish was made with copious amounts of honey glaze. I stared at him. He did not get the picture. I stared some more.

“Why do you need that sauce?”

“I don’t know. I just thought I needed it.”

“So you think it’s not good enough and needs to be covered up with sauce? My cooking sucks?”

I could tell at this point he knew he was caught, but he wasn’t willing to give in. I saw the wheels start to turn and the armor go up. He continued to defend his sauce staunchly, saying something about just needing a little more of something, hemming and hawing until this came out of his mouth:

“I’m not saying I don’t like it. It’s better than some of the other things you make.”

Oh, no, he didn’t.

Oh, yes, he did.

Now, I know I’m not the world’s greatest cook, and I don’t claim to be. I completely understand that everybody has their own tastes, and sometimes a little ketchup is called for. But that’s not the case here. Honey glaze, people. And the man has a sweet tooth, let me tell you.

Once upon a time, early in my parents’ marriage, my mom made fried chicken for my dad. He made an off-handed comment about how it was good but not as good as her mother’s. She didn’t make fried chicken for well over a decade.

He’s made several attempts to backpedal. But he’s still never getting that meal (or any of the other referenced ones if I ever find out what he was talking about) again by my hands. And I might just cut out some of his favorites for a good while as well.

Here’s a lesson to you husbands out there: don’t make nasty comments about your wife’s cooking, or you’ll get a one way ticket to Diet Town.

Ode to Starbucks

Dear Addiction-enabling Purveyor of Caffeine,

Thank you for the frappuccino. You pioneered not only the selling of extravagantly-priced coffee on every street corner, but also the turning of said coffee into a high octane milkshake substitute with a siren song of sugar and POWER. Your mad genius concocted a beverage even professed non-coffee drinkers will suck down with abandon.

Thank you for your spot on marketing team that decided to put said beverage ON SALE. For a week. During a time of day when I can leave the kids with their dad and enjoy your hipster ambiance without telling someone to stop touching things. (OK, so I went to a counter in the grocery store. But still, that’s just because I am far from hip.)

Thank you for appealing to my exhaustion, my sweet tooth, and my manic frugality all at once. You are the master. See you tomorrow.

Love,

Julie

A Frugal Gourmet

A few weeks ago, Jennie asked about our most expensive meal experiences, related to a recent dinner that ended with a fairly hefty price tag. And because my brain is shot full of more holes than a pair of fishnets (thanks, motherhood), it wasn’t until today that I recalled this little tidbit.

When Chris and I were dating (gainfully employed and unencumbered with little things like children and a mortgage), we would celebrate birthdays by going to a fancier restaurant than, say, Chili’s. I think this sprang from the fact we’d started watching a lot of Food Network at the time. The birthday celebrant would be surprised and would not pick up the check. I kicked this off a mere month into our dating relationship (OF COURSE his birthday had to come before mine, and OF COURSE it was one of those milestone birthdays, but what are you going to do when you brand new boyfriend looks at you all schmoopily and says he wants to spend it with you?) by setting up a dinner at the restaurant of a family friend, and might I say, it went beautifully, despite his amusement at his preliminary experience with my driving. He followed with a lovely choice, and it would have been a fantastic evening, if only I hadn’t had the mother of all colds and couldn’t taste a thing I ate. Pity.

No, this story is about the second of my birthdays that we shared. He took me to a place I’d be not so secretly dying to try, in large part for the reputation of its mushroom soup. In my giddiness at getting to sample the wares of this fine establishment, I eagerly nodded with the server suggested a 5 course chef’s selection menu that seemed to come with a reasonable cost. I thought Chris was nodding in agreement when it was probably more of wonderment at how crazy this woman sitting across from him really must be. But I forged ahead in oblivion and enjoyed the whole thing (big thumbs up to the soup (which we encouraged the chef to “select”), but not too happy with a dessert of Bisquick biscuits, sliced strawberries, and Cool Whip), feeling very pampered, but not in any guilt-inducing way (see reasonable cost assumption above).

Later that evening, that guilt came crashing in when my assumption was corrected and I discovered that the reasonable price was not for 2 as I thought I’d heard, but for 1. So it was actually double. I’d blame the wine, but I was stone cold sober before the waiter arrived. We’d just gotten engaged, and the last thing I wanted to do was run up a luxury bill that would throw us off before we got started. Come on, I’m Queen of the Cheap. In the dictionary under Frugal, you find a picture of me. To cause someone, anyone, to spend more money than they should goes against my very soul, and is just Not The Thing To Do. I was mortified.

My remedy: to slip the occasional $20 into his wallet without his knowing. I’m pretty sure I paid for that dinner a couple of times over through the next few months, but at least I could give myself some absolution.

After that, coupon city for every birthday dinner.

The Kitchen Smells Heavenly

Here is a picture of the bread I made – from scratch, with my own little hands – last weekend for the great Sabrina Day potluck. OK, so it wasn’t that difficult and I followed the New York Times no-knead recipe. In my defense (or perhaps my judgment), I have a fear – no, more a worry or niggling concern – of baking with yeast, so I was nervous that it wouldn’t turn out very well and I’d have a large, wheat-colored rock to throw out in the flower beds. Hey, at least I’m not that lady who married the Eiffel Tower.

But turn out it did, and seeing as I had none left at the end of the night, I’d call it a success. So much that I just pulled out bread 2.0 to bring to the in-laws for tomorrow’s pre-Easter Easter potluck (sensing a theme yet?). If I can keep the Hub from cutting into it tonight for a little taste. Can’t hide that with frosting.

We’ll be busy this weekend with various holiday-related activities, all of which will be accented with chocolate in some fashion. It’s a little sad, Easter, in that it’s the last of the Big Foodie Holidays (the season starting with Thanksgiving and working its way through this weekend). Unless I can convince my family that Independence Day is actually about the freedom to eat as much sugar as you want. Probably not. Anyway, have a very happy Easter weekend, and may every egg hidden be found (before it turns into something nasty and not holidayish in the slightest).