tonight’s bloggereenoh

The house is so quiet.  Just me and the two dogs.  Don made a delicious dinner, recipe courtesy of the Naked Chef.  My husband tried another new recipe. 

I always get a little nervous when Don tries out something different, because it’s sort of tricky.  I want to encourage him to continue to split the cooking duties, because honestly this is the first time in my life I’ve been in a relationship where the household chores are shared equally and I REALLY appreciate it!  But if the recipe that he chooses is really disgusting...well, I don’t want to be too enthusiastic or he’ll cook it again! 

For those of you in new relationships, take heart.  It didn’t start out this way.  We were together for around a year before I confessed to him that even though I liked cooking and had been doing it all of my life, that every once in a while it would be nice not to have the responsibility of three meals a day resting solely on my shoulders.  WELL, Don decided then and there that he would make dinner that very night!  He spent hours on the computer pouring over recipes.  Then with a list of ingredients in his hot little hand, he drove to the market.  When he got home he put on one of my aprons.

“Dinner will be ready at 6!” he said, triumphantly, dumping out the grocery bags onto the counter.  He chopped and diced and chopped and diced, face getting redder and redder, chewing his tongue, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his sleeve.  Six o’clock came and went.  Seven o’clock (Keep in mind this was a school night.  On school nights I generally try to serve dinner between 5-6.) Finally a little after 8 o’clock at night, dinner was served.  Complete with special sauces and parsley garnishes. 

We poked at it nervously, what was it?  We chewed.  We swallowed.  We made appreciative noises.  We hoped that the dog would somehow find a way to get it’s mouth around this particular batch of recipes and chew them beyond all recognition.

But tonight!  Tonight was a triumph.  Ever since Don discovered the Naked Chef cookbooks, the family no longer has to tremble as it approaches the dinner table.  Even when he tries out a new recipe, it is generally really good.  And tonight was fantastic!  He made chicken breast wrapped in pancetta, with sprigs of thyme laid over top, cooked on leeks and some delicious roast potatoes.  He really has become an excellent cook and I am very happy (because there is nothing my stomach likes better than well cooked food) and grateful (because now I no longer have to cook every single meal this family ingests!)

It wasn’t so much the work part of the cooking, because really, it’s no big deal.  The part that was hard was deciding what to cook, day after day, week after week.  Because lets face it, I started cooking when I was five.  I’m forty-seven now, so I’ve been eating my own cooking forever it seems and ones tongue can get a little bit bored.  “Oh...It’s you again,” it says.  “Yawn...”

Anyway, Don cooked dinner tonight, but that wasn’t what I was going to blog about.  I thought I was going to talk about being alone in the house.  Just me and the dogs, because everybody went to the movies and I don’t like going to the movies anymore.  And how it’s a weird feeling, all this quiet after so much noise.  I thought I was going to talk about how Scooter was growling and barking at the shrub when I took the dogs out to do their business. Pitch black sky with an extremely fast moving translucent cloud was sprinting across the crescent moon.  And how when Scooter was being an aggressive terrier, I scurried the dogs back inside, because I was remembering what that guy a couple of weeks ago told me.  How just a few blocks from here a guy was cutting his shrub and his little dog was going crazy barking at the shrub and how this big paw appeared through the shrub and nabbed the little dog.  The owner chased the cougar to the local elementary school, just down the block from us, where the cougar was lounging on the roof and feasting on this guy’s dog before the police came and shot it.  I was going to write about how Scooter’s been growling at the windows and doors all night, and this little pip-squeak dog probably thinks he’s looking out for me, protecting me, being the man of the house since everyone’s gone.  But I have to say...it’s not too comforting.  I wish he would stop.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, November 17, 2007 in Chewing the Fat

Page 1 of 1 pages