Everything sublime is as difficult as it is rare. Baruch Spinoza

Saturday, June 18, 2022

Gales and Tales

I've made an appointment with a new doctor for the end of the month. A big move for me and I'm pleased with myself for doing something. We all have our burdens, I am my own.

We have the last nice day for a what looks like the rest of the month. It's a windy day, which with horses in the summer is always welcome. It helps with the bugs. 


Last evenings dinner is representative of how far my husband, Mark, has come in his food journey. Mark grew up on a dairy farm in southwestern Minnesota. He grew up in a family of ten children, seven boys and three girls. He learned hard work and how to stick with something monotonous because it had to be done. His family always had food but meat was sparse. I think this had a lot to do with his mother's deep frugality. She grew up on the elder side of fourteen children and perhaps had a more difficult life. Mark as an adult did not think he ate if meat was not involved. He always felt he hadn't eaten. Through time he has evolved and is perfectly content, and full, with a dinner like this one. He loves eggplant and thinks eggplant 'meatballs' are better than meatballs. He didn't like fish and can still be touchy about it, but in general, he likes it. Over the years all of the food he claimed to not like he does like. Part of this is preparation and exposure. Part of it is Mark will eat what I make, even if he believes he won't like it, which allows him to experience and change his mind. His family, staunch conservative Catholics, did not like me and made no attempt to hide it. I was a city girl, divorced and the mother of a son. I was raised without religion, a small family and a way different food tradition. I am not kidding when I say my ability to cook had a role in his bucking the family! Pappardelle with zucchini and fennel made the former meat fanatic happy. He went on about how good it is and how he doesn't know how I do it. I'll never let on it's not rocket science.

7 comments:

Tabor said...

I have come across several recipes with Pappardelle recently. Interesting!

Sandra said...

Egg noodles by any other name are still egg noodles! I use them a lot. Thanks for stopping by,Tabor.

Far Side of Fifty said...

It looks good, we eat very few noodles dishes. Not very adventerous with food:)

Lori Skoog said...

You sure know your way around a kitchen! Dinner looks delicious!

Sandra said...

Far Side, pasta kind of basic, at least in my world. It's what you do when you don't know what to do. Or because it's in the genes!

Sandra said...

Lori, I've always liked to cook. I worked my way through Le Cordon Bleu at Home in the 90s, which led to to the understanding the Italians had it right all along. Keep it simple!

julochka said...

Food is such a part of who we are. I often think of how far I've come from where I started and the good, but very basic and rather bland food I grew up with. And I'll admit I struggle to escape that notion Mark has that a meal isn't a meal without meat at the center of it. But, I'm getting there. It does still nag a me a bit sometimes and we eat less meat these days, or make the meat we do eat last for several meals. But I could never go fully vegan, I think eggs and cheese and butter are too magical for that.