Hope everybody had a good Valentine's Day. We don't normally really do anything for Valentine's Day, but when I woke up that morning I found these on the table along with my favorite candy (I had already eaten it by the time we took a picture):
Super pretty and very unexpected. Drew's not usually one to get flowers. So I figured I'd better do something more than just make brownies or something so he could have chocolate. (He regularly complains he never gets to have anything chocolate because I don't like it.) So I decided that I would make dinner. Most of you know that I can count the number of times that I have cooked dinner since we were married on one hand. And I never cook anything too exciting. Usually Drew eats it after turning up his nose at the fact that I love to use rice or peppers or some other ingredient he never uses. When we first got married I tried to sometimes make an effort to cook something...but then I realized I had had the good fortune of marrying a man who loves to cook. A man who puts up menus like these on our fridge:
It didn't take long for me to get very used to Drew cooking every night. My dependency on him for food is pretty sad. When he got really sick last winter and didn't get out of bed for like three days it was most apparent. One day all I ate was an entire box of Corn Pops. Another night I went for a midnight run to a taco drive thru. Drew and I have gotten fast food together like twice in the entire time we've known each other. Drew woke up out of his stupor to find me chowing down on refried beans out of a Styrofoam container with empty cereal bowls strewn about. That was a low point.
Anyways, the point is, I don't really cook. If we are having a party I will cook something from a recipe and get kind of into it, but I don't cook as a daily chore at all. Almost always this is just fine. Drew loves tweaking recipes and figuring out what side will perfectly complement the marinade he used on the steak. But every once in awhile, he just doesn't feel like carving the time out of his day to make dinner. So I decided since he had worked the night before and was working again that night, I would make dinner. And make something he liked. So definitely a chocolate dessert...but what for dinner?
I figured that Drew cooks what he likes. The trouble is that what Drew likes is pretty specific, and pretty fancy. You see, before I knew Drew and before he went to Italy, Drew was a very picky eater. He ate like, ice cream, milkshakes, bread, cereal, pizza if he scraped most the sauce off first. Definitely not vegetables. The only Drew I have known is one that loves to cook, and got very into learning to cook from Italians. By the time I actually met him on the mission he was known for being the go to missionary for cooking stuff. I remember even deciding to invite him and his companion to a dinner a bunch of us were having after a baptism, under the condition that they would do the cooking.
After we started dating, I did realize that this must not have been the way Drew always was. He would timidly bite into a piece of fruit or a vegetable and tell me this was the first time he was actually trying it. The first time we went to a Mexican restaurant he just stared at the menu and was like, "I don't know what any of this is. I don't know what to order." So I ordered him a chimichanga. He ate it, but he felt like everything on the menu was just the same few ingredients slapped together in a different form.
That's when Drew really started to become a food snob. For a long time all Drew really knew how to cook or liked to cook was what he ate in Italy. Obviously he was getting great food. As time has gone on Drew has expanded his tastes beyond pasta, seafood, fried meats, and artisan bread. But only to what he believes is the more refined food. Mexican is not refined. Chinese is not refined. American casseroles are not refined. 30-Minutes-Or-Less meals out of Family Circle are definitely not refined. Most Italian food made by Americans is just revolting. He really is a food snob. The only cuisines that make the cut are Italian, French, Indian, and super traditional Southern cooking. Since we came to Alaska and went to a cooking demonstration with a famous chef in the area his expectations have become even higher. Our grocery bill is insane, but hey, I am getting a gourmet meal that I didn't have to prepare every night, right?
So I went with a very Drew dinner: steak with sauteed mushrooms with some type of reduction, baked asparagus with a balsamic glaze, and mashed potatoes. Lava cake in individual ramekins for dessert. (I don't judge you at all if you have to Google what the heck a ramekin is.) I should have known I was getting way too over my head. The amazing thing is, it all ended up being pretty edible! The steak was definitely dry, but not terribly so. I tweaked the reduction recipe but that didn't turn out to be a huge mistake. The asparagus was good and so were the mashed potatoes. I will admit that all I really did for the mashed potatoes was cut and boil the potatoes. Drew took over from there because I was running out of time before I had to go to work. But it turned out pretty tasty. Dessert was probably the worst. I tried to make lava cake but it wasn't lava-y at all. I cooked it too long. But he ate both of them so they couldn't have been that bad!
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| Drew and his lava cake |
I was hoping to have it mostly done by the time Drew woke up, but he woke up early and heard something very strange...was that me, in the kitchen?? (I admit it was like two weeks into living in this apartment before I ventured past the fridge into the rest of the kitchen. I felt so eerily out of place.) So Drew hardly knew what to do with himself and ended up relaxing on the couch. I gave him the chocolate covered bowls and beaters to lick. It was at this point that Drew said, "Ahh, finally! This is what I always dreamed that marriage would be like!" I'm glad I fulfilled his fantasy for at least one brief moment. :)
I'm not really into Valentine's Day, but I'm glad that this year it made me stretch and try something new. And I'm glad I've got a husband who is always whipping up a new concoction or bringing home a new cookbook from the library. I have so many memories with Drew and food: Swinging in a hammock while Drew kept bringing out plate after plate of waffles. Cooking Pasta alla Norma at his parent's house before embarking on our now infamous road trip. The pork skin we brought my best friend, Annie, in Alabama when we stopped to visit her. Her now husband was the only person at the party willing to try and eat it. The Moab Diner where we had our first date. Polishing off a pan of lasagna just between the two of us. Backpacking with a bag of frozen chicken and some barbecue sauce strung up in a tree away from bears, just so Drew could attempt a gourmet meal in the wilderness. Deciding maybe I would give him another chance after getting into a huge jello fight with him outside his apartment in the Riviera. Drew cooking for my parents the day he first met them. The fish Drew brought on the plane with him from Alaska when we reunited after my return to Italy and his first stint in Alaska. Choosing our Italian themed menu for our wedding reception. Having friends over to our first apartment more nights than not, and always making lots of food to share over good conversation. Getting dressed up and going to a fancy restaurant in the middle of a camping trip. Starving all day long while we travel because we are too cheap to eat out and then going from restaurant to restaurant ordering the local fare all night long. Savoring the best steak of my life atop a mountain on our anniversary. Celebrating getting my dream job or Drew graduating by eating out at a fancy restaurant by candlelight, chatting and laughing for hours about what the future might hold for us. Food has so often been a part of our fun together, I'm glad I got to add to our memories with my own little adventure in the kitchen.
