Culinary Prowess

Andy loves to cook meat. I think it makes him feel very MANLY. What's even better is when he gets to cook it on our brand-new BBQ! (There weren't many wedding presents that made him really excited. I can't imagine why --I find platters and napkins and crockpots HIGHLY exciting). He'll get out all the fancy tongs and flippers and whatnots, carefully select appropriate bbq sauces or marinades, and zip back and forth between the kitchen and the grill with a bit of a spring in his step (those little feet are excellent at springing). He often tries to convince me of all sorts of delicious morsels you can cook on that thing (and which I should "permit" him to cook). Mostly, though, he sticks to the classics: hot dogs, steaks, chicken, and fish. When he cooks salmon he even likes to make a special little sauce for it (and it's actually pretty darn good).

When we moved in together, we melded food supplies. For a bachelor, Andy had a surprisingly well-stocked kitchen. He contributed more boxes and dishes than I did. It was kind of neat seeing that we had a similar taste in food, too. In fact, our spice cupboard is pretty funny because we each had the exact same spices, and so now we have two of everything. The freezer is now full of a much more adult variety -- meats, different kinds of breads and ice creams. I haven't had a chance to even see what all he's put in there.

On Sunday afternoon we had Charis over for lunch after church. Usually I like to have pancakes on Sundays, but the last couple times I made them they were, er, under par. We decided we'd serve the classic smokeys, pop and chips trio. I grabbed some weiners from the freezer, handed them to the bbq king, and started munching on the chippies as I visited my dear friend. We sat down to eat, and I took one bite and gave a very weird expression to Andy. He paused mid-chew, and returned the very odd look. What THE HELL is wrong with my hot dog? I started to worry that we were eating something very freezer burnt, or very poisonous and wrong (and we were feeding it to a breast-feeding mommy). Finally, Andy concluded that it was farmer's sausage. Breakfast farmer's sausage. Well, at least it's edible. And hey, I've never had barbequed breakfast sausage before, on a bun. Apparently I handed him the wrong package, and he unwittingly cooked them (I say the blame is double-sided).

Then, last night, Andy fired up the bbq again (I think to redeem our previous experience). I came home to find him mixing his special salmon marinade, with the rice-cooker steaming away. Awwwww. So, I whipped up a salad and waited for him to finish the fish. And I waited. He finally came back in looking concerned, and he apologized, saying the fish took a while, but now it feels really rubbery. Rubbery? I took one look at it and burst out laughing.

It was chicken.

Yes, with the special fish sauce.

Don't worry. Normally we don't have as many little mishaps in the kitchen. If you come over for dinner, I promise it will be yummy. And if not, well, you'll at least have a story to tell -- something worthy of Reader's Digest, perhaps?