On one of our first visits to Memphis after they married, Betty asked if there were any vegetables we particularly liked. We said sure, we both loved asparagus.
She took a bunch of asparagus and boiled it for about half an hour, until it was gray and the texture was a slimier version of cotton candy. Then she put some Velveeta ("processed cheese food") on top of it, and put it in the microwave to melt the Velveeta.
I had previously thought that I could eat anything, to be polite.
You'd think that I would've learned my lesson, except that a few years later, when we visited while I was pregnant, she asked me if I had any cravings and I told her yes, I craved red meat. The next day there was a roast of beef defrosting on the counter, and I thought "great!"
She baked it for four or five hours. It was dry and sawdusty, like an overcooked pot roast... only worse, of course, because pot roast is a tough and fatty cut that actually benefits from long cooking, and this was a lean and, originally, tender cut. And I had to eat every bite of my serving, because she'd made it just for me.
Michael's father told her how good it was. Then, the next day, he went out and bought a bunch of enormous strip steaks and cooked them outside on the grill. (This was at Christmas, too! But in their relationship, grilling is the only permissible situation in which he cooks.) Mine was juicy and red, just on the rare side of medium-rare, and juuuust what I was craving. I probably ate about a pound of meat.
My father-in-law isn't perfect, by any means, but boy do I love him. ;-)
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Date: 2006-12-28 04:09 am (UTC)She took a bunch of asparagus and boiled it for about half an hour, until it was gray and the texture was a slimier version of cotton candy. Then she put some Velveeta ("processed cheese food") on top of it, and put it in the microwave to melt the Velveeta.
I had previously thought that I could eat anything, to be polite.
You'd think that I would've learned my lesson, except that a few years later, when we visited while I was pregnant, she asked me if I had any cravings and I told her yes, I craved red meat. The next day there was a roast of beef defrosting on the counter, and I thought "great!"
She baked it for four or five hours. It was dry and sawdusty, like an overcooked pot roast... only worse, of course, because pot roast is a tough and fatty cut that actually benefits from long cooking, and this was a lean and, originally, tender cut. And I had to eat every bite of my serving, because she'd made it just for me.
Michael's father told her how good it was. Then, the next day, he went out and bought a bunch of enormous strip steaks and cooked them outside on the grill. (This was at Christmas, too! But in their relationship, grilling is the only permissible situation in which he cooks.) Mine was juicy and red, just on the rare side of medium-rare, and juuuust what I was craving. I probably ate about a pound of meat.
My father-in-law isn't perfect, by any means, but boy do I love him. ;-)