 Well, no matter what my husband was called at our wedding, I still
consider him to be pretty darn good.We have the usual arguments
over balled-up socks under the sofa and who should have control of
the remote, but all-in-all, life is pretty decent with him around.
Sometimes when he gets creative, he likes to make dinner.
Usually, it's something he's had at a restaurant that he'll try to
re-create.
I used to do that, but it turned out wrong so many times that I
consider it a waste of time now. I can barely turn out the meals
that I know how to cook, much less new ones. Cooking is just
something I'm not good at.
My husband, though, is intrepid. Last week, we went to a Thai
restaurant and he tasted their fried rice. From then on, he was
unreasonably obsessed with it. Maybe it was the MSG or something,
but he kept saying "We could make this, couldn't we?" When he says
"we" he means me. At first, he had no intention of attempting Thai
fried rice by himself, so he tried to instill a sufficient amount of
enthusiasm in me for Thai fried rice so that I would give it a try.
After being married to the man for almost 27 years, I'm wise to
his ways. My answer was always, "I'd rather just go to the Thai
restaurant and order it." After all, I'm not from Thailand. What
would I know about cooking Thai fried rice? I don't even own a wok.
My experience in cooking is so limited, I'm not even sure if I'd
need a wok.
My husband's enthusiasm-instilling techniques included
downloading recipes off the Internet for Thai fried rice. He brought
me a dozen different recipes under the guise of asking my opinion.
"Which is the best one?" he asked.
I acted dumb (something I am good at). "They all list fish sauce
in the ingredients. Fried rice doesn't taste like fish does it?"
"No, but they all have it, so it must be necessary," he said
logically.
"Well, I'd rather go to the Thai restaurant and order it."
[to top of second column]
 |
 The next day he asked, "Where do you think we can get fish
sauce?"
I acted dumb. "I don't know -- Thailand?"
He ran off to the store to find some fish sauce. I could've told
him he wouldn't find it at the first store he tried, or the second,
but if I gave any indication of intelligence on the matter, he'd
have "volunteered" me to go get it.
Coming home with the prized fish sauce, he proceeded to make his
fried rice. Apparently, you have to make the rice a day or two in
advance. He made a double batch, because he was assuming -- and, if
you ask me, it was a huge assumption -- that it was going to be
delicious. My otherwise brilliant husband didn't think about the
fact that we didn't have a wok and our frying pan wouldn't hold six
cups of rice, much less the added fish sauce and such.
I was laboring over a crossword puzzle when I caught the
overwhelming smell of dead fish. You know, that unmistakable stench
that put me in mind of walking along a beach after a storm when the
sea birds had had a chance to pull the innards out of the beached
sea life -- only this smell was coming from my kitchen.
My husband came in the room looking like he does after he'd just
puked and said, "So, where do you want to go to dinner?"
I smiled and said, "How about the Thai restaurant?"
He turned a little green, "I may never eat Thai food again!"
After we'd cleaned up the mess that resulted from frying six cups
of rice in a one-quart frying pan, we went to McDonald's for dinner.
He is a good man. Maybe not the "best" man, but I love him just
the same.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
You can reach the writer at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
Or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more columns and info about her books.
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