The Box Lied

     It was early Fall of 1996.  I was in my second half of my 19th year.  My husband and I just acquired our first place.  Adult life was suddenly handed over to me whether I was ready or not.  What older people fail to tell younger people is that relationships need tweaking.  Not everything falls into place perfectly.  The husband has his ideas of how life should be and the wife has her ideas and not all the time do they match.  Disappointments and arguments soon follow.  That is not always bad - it is a part of learning each other and growing together as a couple.

     I was never a susie homemaker type of person.  As a teen I was always out working or taking part of some after-school activity or just hanging around with friends.  Home was for sleeping and grabbing a meal here and there.  When there was cooking being done by my mom I was far from it.  It just never interested me.  As a young teen I remember thinking Why cook when there are so many resturants around.  When I met my husband I worked as a waitress at a resturant.  I could serve food but I just couldn't prepare it.  I could fix up smaller things - popcorn, a bowl of cereal, scrambled eggs (not fried or hard boiled), box mix cake, tv dinners and pot pies.  If it pretty much came prepackage I could do it.  My husband must of thought that all women just knew how to cook.  It was somehow in our DNA.  The women in his life were all decent cooks.  His stepmom even owned a resturant!  Women and food just naturally went together.  My working in a resturant must of made him think that I enjoyed being in the kitchen.  Nope!  I proved him wrong about women and the kitchen.  

     One evening I went to prepare the meal.  One perk of being a wife of an over-the-road truck driver was that I didn't have to cook very often.  Or cook to impress that is.  I opened up a box of mac-n-cheese and prepared it just as the directions said.  I put a little in a bowl for me (I just like eating mine out of a bowl) and a little in a bowl for him.  He looks down at the cheesie noodles, "What else are we having with it?" 

     Having WITH it?!  The idea never crossed my mind!  I blankly looked at him and told him this was dinner.  He went on to inform me that mac-n-cheese is not a dinner, it is a side dish!  I thought for a moment.  Mac-n-cheese sounded good.  I didn't know what else he wanted.  I held up the empty box, "It is TOO a dinner.  See," I show him the box, "It says so right here!"  I even pointed to the word dinner.

 

     I don't really remember what happened next if he went off to his mom's for some real food or if he went out to eat.  I remember sitting back and enjoying my bowl of mac-n-cheese shocked that someone just couldn't like it as it was.  Then I looked at the big picture.  I HAD to learn how to cook.  I am going to have to fix dinners for the rest of my life and find something to please my husband with!  The thought of trying to learn to cook made my stomach turn, either that or I put too much butter in with the mac-n-cheese.  I couldn't tell which. 

     The next week I tried cooking up ham steaks for us using a cookbook.  400 degrees and an hour later they were a little crispy.  Again, my husband was disappointed as he tried to fork out the charred piece of what was once a ham steak from the pan.  I think the Lord must of heard his plea for help because a few moments later his friend and his wife came by and wondered if we wanted to join them for pizza at a local resturant.  Finally, something edible!

     Around the same time I had a friend from college come over to help me fix a dinner for my husband.  She had to help me learn to brown hamburger.  I have never done it before.  Something as simple as browning hamburger was a clueless process to me years ago.  I was so impressed by how easy it was.  My mom has browned hamburger a zillion times but I never watched her do it.  I never even gave the matter thought until then.  I didn't care how it was done.  I just wanted the finished product. 

     I have come a long way since then.  Meatloaf took me about 10 times to get that right.  Chicken - well, I have perfected it but I did it so wrong so many times that my husband cringes when I mention about fixing it.  Now everything is like second nature.  Even my mom is impressed that make my own granola and homemade biscuits and jellies.  I am no Chef Gordon Ramsey by any means but a lot more of my meals impress my husband.  Mararoni and cheese is no longer a dinner at our house.  For lunch? well...that is another story.