Monday, May 28, 2012

HONEY, I'M HOME !!!!


     My husband is the cook in my family. It naturally evolved this way because when we were first married he worked a 6:00AM to 2:30PM shift at the United Air Lines Maintenance Operations Center in San Bruno, California.   I worked the 11:00 to 7:00PM shift at the United Air Lines Reservations Center near Pier 39 in San Francisco. If we'd have waited for me to come home and cook we'd have been eating dinner at 10:00PM. A lot of our empty nester friends dined out all the time.   Both of us had been single parents for a long time so he didn't mind cooking and he actually enjoys it.   I bake, I'm the baker in the family.  I love baking cakes and  muffins and my favorite cookbooks are dessert cookbooks. 
     Rod is a wonderful cook much better than I am.  He has so many specialties and anyone who has broken bread with us knows.  Chicken cacciatore is a good one and is our niece Bobbie's favorite.  She even asked him to make it for her birthday a few years ago.  His mother taught him to make fried chicken and it's so good my granddaughter Ally and I do the "fried chicken dance" in celebration when he makes it.  We used to go out for prime rib all the time until Rod perfected that dish.  Spaghetti has always been his own children's favorite and son Jimmy bragged so when he moved his North Carolina family out here to California they couldn't wait to try it.  My favorite is sauerkraut and peeled boiled potatoes with pork chops or pork meat.  Yumm.  I'ts a variation on his mother's sauerkraut and potato dumplings and my Mom's spareribs cooked in sauerkraut.
     My daughter Robin married a guy who is a wonderful cook, also.  In the summertime Rick will grill all day on Sundays and they'll freeze hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks, sausages, to have at meals during the week.  He does a dish with green beans and stewed tomatoes that's so good "it'll make you want to swallow your tongue" as my Dad used to say.  Poor Dad.  When Mom had her strokes all he knew how to do was cook a canned ham or fry spam or canned corn beef hash.  It took a while but he learned how to put a little pork roast in the oven and when I would fly home to Virginia he'd make the roast and Robin and I would make salad, green beans,  and mashed potatoes and a yellow cake with homemade cooked chocolate icing.
     I'm diabetic now which is a curse that's been handed down from my relatives on both sides of my family.  When Rod and I eat at home I do really well as he takes good care of me but I start getting in trouble if we eat in restaurants too often.  It's awful but I'll judge a place by how good their french fries are and my favorite are big french fried potato wedges.
     Before we retired Rod used to tease me I'd come home from work and pet the cat, get a drink, and ask "what's for dinner, Honey!"  My how times have changed.

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