Culinary Goddess

After an especially intense workout that involved 30 minutes on something called the Stairmaster 2000, I was starving by the time dinner time rolled around. The kitchen was abuzz with activity, with my wife feverishly preparing her latest triumph… although, I must say that I felt rather deflated when I saw the bag of Brussels sprouts on the counter.

 

It’s not that I won’t eat them. Pam, like my mother before her, has trained me to eat whatever is placed before me without complaint. It’s just that when you’re really hungry, Brussels sprouts isn’t your meal of choice. I mean, just look at them, tight, green, little balls of vegetation better suited for ammunition in a cafeteria food fight than for eating. I’m sure that they are positively packed with all sorts of life-giving nutrients. A diet of these babies would probably take ten pounds off you in a week. But on this night I was hoping for something more potatoe-y and steak-y and less…green. I smiled at her and said something like, “Looks great Hon.”

Thirty minutes later, she places a plate in front of me that would have given Ina Garten an inferiority complex. First, there was a baked chicken breast covered in a Dijon mustard, sautéed mushroom sauce. Beside that was a helping of seasoned brown rice. Just to the left of that were the barely recognizable Brussels sprouts. She had cut them all into quarters, and drizzled them with some sort of exotic oil and baked them in the oven to a caramelized brown color. There was a crunchy edge to each of them. When I took the first bite I realized that my wife is a culinary goddess. She had somehow made Brussels Sprouts taste like bacon. When I went into the kitchen after dinner to clean up, there were a couple of helpings left on the stove stop. I shoved them into my mouth with both hands…just like those cooking show judges would have done.

My wife, I think I’ll keep her!