The way to a man's heart...

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.  If anyone has proven that to be true, I think it has to be me.  What I never expected is that I would find the way to my own heart through his stomach too!  I love to cook, and I'm fortunate to have such an enthusiastic participant.  He'll eat anything and is often the test subject for my trials and errors.  No matter what I put in front of him, he looks upon his plate as though I've given him the golden ticket to the chocolate factory, and declares each and every meal as the best he's ever had.  Well, almost every meal....

The first time I cooked for him, I made brussels sprouts.  I served him five and he ate (precisely) two and a half.  The third time I served them he told me he really doesn't like brussels sprouts.  I had to admire his tenacity in choking them down the first two times.  But by the third time, he had spotted a trend he did not want to continue!  I loved him a little more for that.

Our first Christmas together, I felt really bad for him that he was stuck thousands of miles away from home and family, and I wanted to bring a little bit of Australian Christmas to Texas for him.  Since I couldn't change the season to Summer, I thought I'd make a traditional Australian Christmas meal.  I had no idea what that might be, so I set to Googling 'traditional Australian Christmas'.  Time after time, the words 'Steak and Kidney Pie' appeared.  I thought that sounded disgusting, but they are part of the Commonwealth after all, and the British eat some really, well, different things, so it made some sense.

Being a butcher's daughter, only the best would do for my guy's steak and kidney pie!  I drove out to my family's meat market and asked my brother for a pound of ribeye cubed, and a pound of kidney.  I wish I could adequately describe the face he made, and I can't repeat his words here, but they were along the lines of 'WHY'???  After I explained, he reluctantly agreed and went off to find a kidney.  Ten minutes later, he called me to the back where I found a neat little pile of cubed ribeye, and a gooey mound of congealed grodiness.  He said "before I mix these together, is this really what you want to do."  I told him yes, and after we both poked, prodded and gagged a little bit at the kidney, we mixed that beautiful steak with that purpley black mound of goo.

I managed to secretly assemble the pie and packed it up to take to my family's Christmas at my parents' house.  I need to mention here that this was the first time Mark was meeting my family all together, which can be a little intimidating to say the least.  He is rather quiet and studious...and we are not!  The pie went to the oven and filled the house with a stench that he had the good manners to ignore.  I served it to him with a big smile and a Merry Christmas, while my entire family looked on expectantly.  Was this Australian guy our sister brought home really going to eat that stuff?

He tucked in to the first bite and swallowed.  Then in rapid succession, he inhaled seven more bites by the time I could get down one.  I spit mine out the second it hit my tongue, and knocked the fork out of his hands.  At that moment, I knew that he loved me.  Nobody would choke down that amount of nastiness for anything but love! 

We've had a lot of fun telling that story over and again, and my dad has had a lot of fun telling people "The thing about kidney is you really have to cook the piss out of it!" Mark later told me that they do not eat steak and kidney pie for Christmas in Australia -- they barbecue!!

Mealtime is my favorite time of the day.  I find it cathartic to come home from a long day at work and get lost in preparing dinner.  Its a time when I'm generally focused on the two of us, and what I'm going to treat us with that night.  As I said, Mark is always so enthusiastic about my meals, and I completely eat up the praise he lavishes once his belly is full.  His return is doing the dishes.  He does the dishes every night without exception.  No matter how many pots, pans, bowls, and kitchen apparatus I dirty, he shoos me away and cleans it all up.  I love that time, as it's the time of day when we come together, and we're both doing someting for one another. 

We've talked a lot about this concept of cooking for love, and exploring the reasons (beyond sustenance) why people cook.  There is one thing that is clear...I've cooked my way into his heart, and he's eaten his way into mine!  We just have to be careful not to love each other fat!