Have I ever told you the “That makes my tummy sad” story? I bet not.
We all know that I am not the greatest cook in the world and we all know why I married an Italian man who watched his momma in the kitchen. I don’t need to go through that once again.
Several months ago, on a random weekend evening, I stared in the cabinets, trying to think about what I would cook for dinner. I actually felt in the mood to cook, and well, that feeling just doesn’t come around very often. Long story short, I tried my hand at hand making gnocchi—without my husband’s assistance—to go along with a cream sauce I improvised.
Note to self: Don’t try improvising anymore. It never works out for you.
I plopped dinner down on the table, about an hour later, and forewarned the boys. My older son, in a rare considerate moment, told me not to worry. It wasn’t the best dinner in the world, but it was edible.
Ant was of a different opinion.
He took one bite of gnocchi, made a wonderfully grotesque face, and then turned to me. “Momma, please do not make this anymore. I was so hungry, and you have made my tummy sad.” He then pushed his plat away with a sigh, and went to wash his hands and face.
Oh yeah, I’m that good.
K and I, well, we found Ant’s reaction wildly amusing. We shared it with J before he could even walk in the door from work. We’ve gone on about it all of these months, in the way only a family can. We bring it up over and over again, and I’m sure we’ll be sharing it at the family reunions when we’re old and gray.
Fast forward to last night.
One of J’s favorite things to make is fried chicken. He loves fried chicken, he makes wonderful friend chicken, and fried chicken is one of the many reasons why I love this man. Recently, however, there have been some problems with the fried chicken.
The first one is that J has had a hard time acclimating to the electric stove. For all of his culinary life, J has pretty much cooked on gas. The broken little house in St. Louis had a hideously ugly, but wonderfully forgiving gas stove and oven. Things seemed to magically pop out of the pan, cooked to perfection. Cooking on electric takes a bit more work. Our current stove does not have magical powers.
The second thing is that, even after all of these years together, we are still cooking with the hand-me-downs we got when we went to college. Yeah. J’s favorite chicken frying pan is about an inch away from giving up the ghost, and while he fully recognizes that the pan is no longer doing what a pan should do best, my guess is that I will have to pry that sucker out of his massive paws.
Guess who’s getting cookware for their birthday, Mr.???
We sat down yesterday evening to our late dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. J immediately took a J-sized bite out of his piece, and realized that the juices were not, um, clear.
Ant was digging into that chicken at an alarming pace. He’s exactly like his father. I sat there, watching as J realized the chicken was undercooked, as he looked over to Ant, and realized that his piece was undercooked as well, and then I watched as realization dawned on J’s face—he was going to have to take Ant’s piece of chicken away.
Note to Ant’s future wife: Seriously—Don’t mess with his dinner once it’s on his plate. Ever.
Now, props to my husband: J is a ‘rip the band-aid off’ kind of guy. I tend to waffle. So it was good that he was the one who was taking charge in removing food from Ant’s plate, because I would have waffled and likely given my son food poisoning, and J moved right in with all caution abandoned.
By this time, K was paying attention too. He knows that there will be repercussions for messing with Ant’s dinner.
J explained to Ant that the chicken was undercooked. J explained how we didn’t want him to get pukey, or sick, or have to go to the HOSPITAL. Ant sat there, with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes glaring back at J, silently listening to everything his Dad had to say.
When J was done, Ant spoke up. “I want my chicken back.”
“I’m sorry, hon, it’s not cooked all of the way through,” I said, trying to show support for my husband. You see? I had his back.
Ant didn’t even glance in my direction or acknowledge that I had spoken. “Dad, I never thought I would have to say this to YOU, but you took away my fried chicken, and YOU have made my tummy sad.” He arose from the table with a disgusted sigh and headed for the stairs. As he vacated the room he addressed me over his shoulder, “Mom, when you are finished, you can find me in my room. It will be time to read my Halloween story then.”
K and I sat at the table, quietly smirking. J turned around to me and said, “Don’t even think that this makes US even.”
Really? How can you begin to imagine that I think we’re even? I’m just happy that I got on the score board, mister!
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