My Chemist and a New Element

Let’s just get it out there. B. and I are very different.  I’ll save how we met and got married for another time, but suffice it to say opposites truly attract.  There is some real depth to that normally trite catchphrase. 

When we were dating, she told me once that she was worried that I was looking for someone who had more in common with me. 

Now, I would never hit B., or any woman for that matter, but in that instant I reeeeeeally wanted to smack her.  Fortunately this conversation was over the phone. 

I had to explain that I love our differences, I celebrate them. 


Everyday.   

I mean that, everyday. 



... It helps that they usually come up everyday. 

Pizanmovinite: 

I grew up in a large albeit tightly knit family, and there is one tradition that seemed to survive and thrive better than scripture study or prayer or even nightly meals together around the dinner table with all of the stress and scheduling life brings: 

Pizza and movie night.   

It was literally a household word for me.  I would come home on Friday after school and ask my mom, “What’s the plan for pizanmovinite?”  That’s right.  With common usage, it was shortened and meshed into one glorious term that, now that I see it written down, seems like a chemical element or a geological sample like carbonite or something. 

Every week we had pizza, usually homemade by mom, and we gathered together to watch a movie.  We rotated who got to pick.  

My family and home life - my childhood - was cemented together with marinara and Disney DVDs.  Everyone had their piece of the pie, a task that became very literal and very complicated on these family evening get-togethers.  Half of one pizza was left plain cheese to appease younger, pickier mouths.  The rest (usually three pies fed our large family with the chance of a few leftovers - gone within twenty-four hours) was a carefully fractionated conglomerate of pepperoni, pepperoni with black olive, hawaiian, meat lovers, supreme and veggie supreme.  (getting hungry yet?)

I've since become a bit of a snob when it comes to pizza.  Homemade is best, but in a pinch Papa John's will do.  Dominoes is for desperate times, Little Caesar's is only acceptable when you're moving or broke.  Blackjack's plastic cheese and cardboard crust is criminal.  Papa Murphy's?  I'd rather eat the box.

I’ve tried to make pizza for my wife, but to her, it’s just food.  AND she has to be in the mood for it.  This took months to wrap my brain around; if food is in front of me, I'll eat it.  I still make pizza about twice a month, and 9 times out of 10 I eat it all.  Mostly, I just make it because I can easily transport it to my job (I walk/bike to work) and have leftovers for lunch.  Still, I hope pizza becomes a staple in our new family.

You say spud cement, I say...

The reason my wife endures my obsession with Italy’s greatest invention is because she, too, has an incurable culinary fixation.  Starchy and salty and buttery and creamery and oh so good.  She looooves mashed potatoes.  


If she donates her body to science, it will come with a complimentary gravy boat. 


Some people add potatoes to their main course.  She crafts her meals around them.  Her diet revolves around them, which explains why we have roast almost every Sunday.   Roast beef with peas, fried chicken, any excuse to boil and mash little golden nuggets sprung from Irish soil.  Okay, they're probably from Idaho.

I've tried to match her recipe, and it has always come out disastrous.  She's a chemist with the stuff.  She knows the exact consistency, the ratio of butter to salt to milk to add to the starchy paste.  I married the Walter White of taters.  When we had only known each other a few weeks we were helping make a big dinner, both of us adding butter to the mixture, unaware of the other's contribution.  I'm not sure she'll ever forgive me for what I did to that batch.

It's that important.  Every meal.  She can’t understand how I could ever get tired of them.  I just shake my head and add toppings to my pizza.

I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong.  Nor am I saying that these are the only dishes on which we disagree or for which we stand as the lone supporter.  I love breakfast, she's more dinner-oriented.  She has to be in the right mood for something like italian, chinese, steak, curry, soup or stir-fry.  I just need cash in my wallet and an empty belly.  I’m saying that with marriage comes compromise.  And that compromise extends into things like menus.  


We all bring our own elements into the chemistry of our homes.  Including the kitchen. 

How has your menu changed over time?

Any recommendations for this new couple venturing into the culinary unknown?




S