My Husband Makes Dinner

My husband has many, many fine qualities. He is smart, funny, kind, and a very talented performer and teacher. His support and love for me is unwavering, and he is very devoted to his family and friends. I have more fun with him than I do with anyone, and we can have fun whether we are going to Lowe’s to pick up picture-hanging hardware or spending a week in Disney World.

My husband is also trained as a professional chef. He has a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, and worked for many years in the food service field.

I did not know this about my husband for the first year or so that I knew him, when he was just a friendly theater acquaintance of mine. I did know many interesting and sometimes obscure factoids about him. I knew that he was Jewish. I knew that he had a dog, two cats, and three pianos. I knew that he wore a fedora well. I knew that he would insist that any wife of his carry a cell phone. I even knew that he had seen “Lettice and Lovage” on Broadway with Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack because he was thoughtful enough to give me his Playbill program from the show after seeing me perform in the Heritage Players’ production of the play in Bethel Park. I thought better than to ask him whether he preferred Margaret (who won a Tony for the role) or me in the role of “Lotte.” No one ever mentioned that he was a chef.

So, it was in complete ignorance and with the purest of intensions that I offered to make him lasagna if he would make practice tapes for me for potential audition songs. I didn’t think it fair to ask him to do this for me without recompense and since he was a single guy who lived alone the Italian mother in me thought it might be nice for him to have a good meal. Oh, did HIS mother laugh when she heard this story!! He graciously agreed to this barter, by the way, without mentioning his culinary background, and held me to my part of the bargain, even after I discovered the truth and was pretty embarrassed to have made the offer.

Just to clarify, my respectable lasagna aside, I am not much of a cook. Cooking stresses me out. I prefer making one-dish meals because I have difficulty timing different dishes to be ready at the same time. I follow recipes religiously, and still things turn out wrong. The first time I attempted to cook a turkey for a family dinner, I called my mother about four times with questions, and still managed to cook the bird with the giblets inside. I figured out long ago that I could purchase some pretty fine baked goods at the supermarket that were far superior to anything I could make. If I lived alone, I would probably exist on cereal and sandwiches.

My husband, on the other hand, is a natural cook. His parents love to tell the story about waking up one Saturday morning to hear my husband, who was three years old at the time, asking his fifteen-month-old brother, “So, how would you like your eggs?” Cooking relaxes him. He loves to make gourmet dinners from start to finish. He sometimes looks up recipes but rarely follows them, using them as a kind of general guideline. He often creates meals from scratch. He’s the kind of person who can walk into a kitchen where there is nothing to eat, and “whip something up.” In these instances, he will call you down 20 minutes later to a delicious chicken parmesan dinner, complete with pasta and a spinach side dish. He bakes his own bread on a regular basis.

Naturally he does the cooking in our family. Really now, why wouldn’t he? It gives him such happiness – why would I take that from the man I love? Once a co-worker asked him if he did most of the cooking at home, and he responded that no, he did ALL the cooking. That isn’t strictly true. I have a few specialties (that I can count on one hand). These include two kinds of lasagna, Waldorf Salad, Strawberry Pretzel Salad, and the appropriately-named Pork Chops, Sweet Potatoes and Apples. I can also usually make a presentable plate of spaghetti but eggs? Well, eggs are trickier.

Even simple stand-bys like mine can become complicated when you are married to a chef. Take my Waldorf Salad, for instance. My mother made this dish at Thanksgiving, and it couldn’t be simpler to assemble. Cut up apples and celery, throw in some seedless grapes and walnuts , toss it all up with some Hellman’s and voila! – a tasty side dish that is sure to please. The first time I planned to make this, my husband was surprised when I mentioned grapes. “You use grapes in your Waldorf Salad?” he said, full of professional curiosity. It seems that, at the Culinary Institute of America, they put raisins in their Waldorf salad, not grapes. Well, I don’t care what those high brow food people do I’m putting grapes in my Waldorf Salad.

I found that any delusions I may have had about my cooking abilities were quickly and summarily dismissed when I married a chef. The first meal my husband made my 18-year-old son and me after we moved in was a very simple chicken dish, made after a long day of moving. My son took one bite, and his face lit up. In clear admiration and astonishment, he declared, “This is the BEST chicken I’ve ever eaten!” Now, I know for a fact that it was boneless chicken breasts baked in barbecue sauce from a jar, and I had made this same dish many times over the years. Maybe it was my husband’s careful basting technique that he explained to me (I just poured the jar of barbeque sauce over the chicken) or perhaps he just used a better barbeque sauce than I did. Oh, who am I kidding? The truth is that the man just has a way with food.

Don’t get me wrong – I am delighted that my husband is a chef. It is a win-win situation, a blessing really. My husband loves to cook and I love to eat. We are the perfect pair.

Straight Man Dancing (the Great Swayze Debate)

I came across this never-published piece that I wrote circa 1994. Here it is, as I wrote it, when Patrick Swayze was very much alive. I dedicate this to his memory and to Jen, wherever she is.

Deep in the bowels of a Student Union, in an alternative universe known as a college campus, there once was a spot known as the Times Suite. Every Wednesday night about 25 students, largely between the ages of 18 and 25, worked late into the night to put the student newspaper to bed. We were dedicated to the truth, the article, the paper itself, and to satisfying the requirements for our Journalism classes.

Among the typing of articles, the laying out of copy, the developing of photographs, and the all-important making of coffee, was the sharing of minds. Debating the larger, and some of the smaller, issues of the day, we discussed the sexes (and the battles that persist between them), music, politics, school, campus issues, and the MTV Video Music Awards. But the topic that was to shatter our little group, to inspire the hottest controversy among us was…Patrick Swayze.

To this day, I am not sure how he came up. All I know is that the mention of his name provoked an extremely violent physical and emotional reaction in my young friend, Jen.

“EWW,” she shuttered as though she had just heard fingernails on a blackboard. “Patrick Swayze??” I HATE him,” she said with a vehement loathing I had not witnessed in her since we had discussed cheerleaders, homecoming queens, and other girls with big hair.

“Really?” I said, surprised. “”I like him.”

“NO!” Jen stared at me in abject horror as though I had just told her that I admired Adolph Hitler. “You can’t like Patrick Swayze. You really don’t, do you?”

“Well, yes, I really do,” I answered, not seeing why I should deny it. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t the only woman in America who felt this way. Nonetheless I felt compelled to rationalize my fondness for Mr. Swayze to Jen, who was obviously not a fan.

To risk sounding shallow, Patrick Swayze looks really good all the time. This was especially true in Dirty Dancing, a movie I have seen several times and have every intention of seeing again.

Furthermore Patrick really can act- believable enough for me in any role. He displays a certain passion in his roles and takes chances in his choices of roles. He considers himself to be an actor, not a star, and is dedicated to his craft. That sort of purity of purpose is always attractive in a guy.

Finally, Patrick seems like a genuinely nice guy and decent person in real life. He adores his wife openly, calling her his soul mate. He is sensitive and open, even crying in a Barbara Walters interview. But obviously I’m missing some horrible flaw; some big reason I should be repelled by Patrick Swayze.

No one’s mind was changed that night. Jen remained firm in her distaste for Patrick Swayze, and I found myself suddenly in the mood to see Dirty Dancing again. Maybe it was an age thing. I WAS older than the other kids.

The incident left its mark on me. One day at work someone mentioned a Patrick Swayze movie. Like an alcoholic caught in her addiction, I nervously confessed that I liked him and launched into all the reasons why.
My friend Christie listened for a few minutes before she touched my arm and shook her head gently to stop my long-winded explanation. “Sharon,” she said wisely, “he’s a straight man who can dance.”

Doesn’t that just sum it up?! As convincing as he might have been in To Wong Foo, we know he’s straight. And even Jen couldn’t deny that he could dance. Isn’t that what most women are really looking for in a guy? Some nice, sensitive, straight man who can dance, or who would at the very least be willing to fake it at our cousin’s wedding? That’s exactly why I like Patrick Swayze so much. And he can dirty dance for me anytime.