Soup and a Goddess

Last night was very cool. Wednesday night, Pam goes to her Yoga class from 6 to 7:30. She’s been doing it for several years now and we have developed this routine where I prepare dinner on Wednesday night. Back when she started with the Yoga class, she would actually make the entire meal herself and leave me a note telling me when to put it in the oven. But, as time has passed, she has allowed me more responsibility for the meal itself. At this point, I probably should add the very salient point that as a Dunnevant man, I come from a long line of witless cooks. My father couldn’t boil water without a tutorial. My brother, Donnie, recently retired with time on his hands, has taken it up and scored some impressive dishes...if doctored photographs on Facebook can be believed...but this doesn’t change the fact that I can recall a time when Donnie couldn’t identify the working end of a spatula. So, my genetic pedigree in the kitchen is marred by generations of ineptitude.

Luckily for me, Pam is an amazing cook. Since the kids have moved out of the house, I have taken to watching her prepare meals. She is organized and precise, one of those recipe following cooks who take great care in doing things right. She measures things out, none of this pinch of this and dash of that business. Watching her lay out the ingredients, assemble everything expertly, then pull the finished product, hot and gurgling out of the oven is quite therapeutic. So, when she asked me what I wanted to make for last night’s meal, I said that I wanted to attempt her lemon chicken orzo soup...from scratch...a first and quite a step up from the old days. I posted the before and after videos on Facebook last night which chronicled my triumph. It was amazing, if I must say so myself...and, I must.

But, here’s the thing that struck me most about the experience. By the time Pam walked through the door at 7:40, I was throughly whipped. Cooking an entire meal from scratch is like juggling chainsaws for me. I’m constantly setting off timers and watching the clock. Beep beep beep...wait, what is that one for??!! Wait, do I add the garlic before, after, or simultaneously with the other spices? And, when it says “boil for ten minutes, does that include the ten minutes the silly thing took to come up to a boil? Beep beep beep...crap!! What the heck? Oh yeah...add the orzo and half a cup of lemon juice from the two lemons...YOU FORGOT TO JUICE!!!

As the dish began to actually take shape and I glanced at the clock and realized that I was going to pull this off the thought occurred to me...Pam does this every night. But, not only does she prepare a meal every night, she decides what to cook, makes out a list of ingredients, goes to the store and buys the ingredients, then cooks the meal...every stinking night for 35 years. After what I went through last night, that is a staggering thing to comprehend. My wife...is a goddess.