housewifery...

last night, in honor of my sweetie's 43rd birthday, i made him his favorite dinner--fried chicken and fried potatoes. when we were dating, i made this for dinner a lot. that means i made it approximately 4 times in the span of our 18-month courtship. in the subsequent almost eighteen years of marriage, i've probably prepared it 4 times. i can't really attribute the attrition rate in my preparation schedule to anything in particular, but the following seem logical, some may seem cruel, but most are just funny:

• by the time we were married, i was tired of the cutting, chopping, flouring, frying, splattering mess of this meal,
• i figured, he had married me...i could quit it with all the impressive cooking stunts already,
• i didn't want my skinny husband to end up a fat lump on the couch,
• i don't really like fried chicken,
• can anyone say cholesterol? (i forgot to mention the fried potatoes are made with bacon grease!)

the whole thing reminded me of my best friend in high school, suzy gerard, and the wise words her mother imparted on all the girls that entered her house.

when the young mrs. gerard was first married, every day she would bake a loaf of bread. each evening her newlywed husband would arrive from a hard day at the office to the aroma of a warm loaf waiting on the dinner table. one day, about six months after their wedding day, mrs. gerard, for one reason or another, did not bake the bread. that night her husband came home and smelled no awaiting loaf. he approached the kitchen and worried to himself if, perhaps, mrs. gerard had been the victim of an intruder, as he could detect no baking smells emanating from the kitchen. there at the kitchen table sat the young mrs. gerard, reading the evening newspaper. mr. gerard was in a huff, "but what about the bread?" he asked in a powerful tone. "i didn't make any today," was her simple reply, and she returned her gaze to the newspaper. the spell had been broken. mr. gerard came to expect the bread. mrs. gerard came to resent preparing it. hence, the special-ness of the simple act of baking a loaf of bread had vanished. mrs. gerard would tell each girl that heard her tale, "don't set expectations too high in the beginning. you're setting yourself up to fail."

maybe i should have started off the courtship with meatloaf...i make terrible meatloaf.