Monday, April 21, 2008

Cooking Outside the Box


Did you ever notice how opposites really do attract? I like to look at couples and see how the two sets of personality traits—the yin and yang--complement each other.

In his Financial Peace events, financial counselor Dave Ramsey asks the Free Spirits to raise their hands, and then the Geeks to raise theirs. Regarding money, there’s one of each in every household, and they know who they are.

DH and I like to say that I follow the rules, and he breaks them. These behaviors show up everywhere, but viewing them in the kitchen is particularly entertaining. DH is free-wheeling and creative. He cooks outside the box, and when the meal is complete, it may look like he did a flour dance in the kitchen.

On the occasion of the Great Tomato Soup Adventure, his homemade tomato soup exploded all over our walls in a regrettable blender accident. Twice.

Compare that to the geeky behavior I display when I’m in charge. Habitually, I follow the rules, stick to the recipes, and carefully measure ingredients.

Now, one of the reasons you should choose a spouse carefully is that you can pick up some of each other’s personality traits over time. After hanging around DH for so many years, I’ve begun to be slightly more adventurous with my cuisine.

On Sunday, I was tossing together my Mediterranean Chicken, and something odd happened. First of all, I wasn’t my orderly self. I didn’t measure, I made a couple of substitutions, and I altered the recipe. To my surprise, this improved on it! We had a couple of friends over for lunch, and the kitchen looked a little wild by the time they arrived. “What can we do?” they asked. “If I were you, I’d just stay away,” I replied. “Should we go home?” “Not that far away.”

They raved about the meal and went back for seconds. DH even complimented it two or three times and said it was the best I’ve ever cooked.

This is a new thing for someone who has been known to say, “When cooking, I often get bored, wander off and burn stuff.” (I stole that from my friend, the French teacher.)

Maybe cooking can be fun!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mediterranean Chicken sounds good. You need to send me the recipe--or your new, improved one.

TS said...

I've e-mailed it to you! Right now I'm trying recipes from Cooking Light Magazine. Yum!