Ack and gah!

One thing I especially love about J is her insatiable desire to experiment. She never reads a manual: she just dives in and presses all the buttons, making a mental note of which ones do whatever, and from then on, she is mistress of all things related thereunto.

In the culinary arts, however, she adopts the prescriptive approach. She browses her collection of recipe books and computer files until she finds one that both her mind and her appetite can agree on at the moment. She takes these instructions to the kitchen and by following them pretty much as written (except when things that are listed are not to be found in the cupboard so substitutions are in order) produces something that would certainly be worthy of public consumption.

Many times we have discussed whether if all else failed, she might open a bistro under the obvious name, "Eat@Jo's". This would accommodate both those meat-and-potato eaters to whom the very name suggests roadside diners, while also making room for the computer-savvy amongst the traveling public, who could order ahead by email.

Rarely, but not statistically impossibly, she will hit a clinker, which finds its best audience with the raccoons who nightly forage our feeding platform, otherwise known as the deck.

Last night was such a rarity.

She found something that combined it-might-have-been-a-chicken with breadcrumbs and something else, and the other thing was broccoli and something also coated. Her irrepressible urge to experiment resulted in a dish I promptly named, "Ack and Gah!"

Back in the day, had my mother put such a meal on the table and met with restlessness from the natives, my father would have answered my reluctance by saying, "Too well fed!" This in turn used to enrage me, because, from my point of view, at that precise moment, I was not well enough fed at all. Dad, as usual, of course, was merely quoting some wisdom of the Fathers, someone whose name was "Grandad", who might have been any one of a number of such persons in his stable of ancestors.

J, on the other hand, simply laughed. And laughed. And laughed some more. This made me laugh in concert, until eating either the Ack or the Gah was rendered nearly impossible.

Such happy times! Other spouses might well have said, "Suck it up or go get your own food". But J's attitude toward food doesn't differ much from her attitude toward life itself. "Well, let's try this, and if it doesn't work, we'll have to try something else."

I once made the mistake of bragging, "I'll try anything once". That's no longer true. Bungy jumping and anything involving heights is pretty much exempt. I've learned to draw a pretty strong line in these older years. But occasionally, something will cross the line.

Ack and Gah! Please dear...