If you're lucky and you know it ...

Things are pretty hairy around our place just now. We are racing to meet too many deadlines, readying the apartment for the LD, and walking around a little zombie-like if truth be told. Not in an awful, dreary way—but yes, we are a wee exhausted. So tonight, we decided to try for something halfway normal: push off from our desks at 7:30 p.m.... go shopping for food since the fridge is bare … make an easy but promising recipe from a Jamie Oliver cookbook … sit down at the table like civilized adults.

We get home from the IGA at 8:30 p.m. Craig unloads the groceries. I begin the recipe: Risotto with Roasted Garlic, Thyme, Almonds, and Mascarpone Cheese. I’m well underway when I ask Craig for the thyme. As soon as I say it, I realize it’s the one thing in the $150 shop we forgot. I forgot. Craig’s poured himself a rare bourbon (he’s not drinking very often to keep me company through the pregnancy), and has had one miserly sip.

“I’ll go out again,” he says, though it’s mucky outside and there’s a hockey game on. “Should I pick up anything else?”

I tell him some basil and milk, and apologize absentmindedly.

He comes back while I’m chopping and on the phone with my brother. I point to the recipe book and signal that he should start the risotto-making part of the process, the directions for which, according to our recipe, are on another page. I’m yammering away with Dylan when I notice Craig looking somewhat despondent.

“We don’t have half the ingredients for the basic risotto part of the deal,” he responds to my questioning look. I hadn’t thought to look on that page, thinking it was a matter of rice, butter, and stock, or something equally simple.

I get off the phone, and try to convince him that we can make do with some admittedly paltry substitutions. He heads to the door. Without a scowl or a muttered anything, he heads out again (it’s after 9 p.m. now and his bourbon sits forlornly on the counter, ice all but a memory), waving off my repeated bleats of how awful I am.

When he comes back, I am so tired I have dropped to a chair at the table to chop feebly—no more standing up on my swollen feet. He makes the risotto carefully and quietly, and without the smallest complaint.

At 10 p.m., we sit down for dinner. Brian Browne jazz in the background, dimmed lights, single candle. The most delicious risotto I have ever tasted. Life is good. Very good.

Comments

[newman riggs]

If you continue not to turn the page to check on the balance of the ingredients, don't expect him to go out the door so quietly after 40 years. I too used to leave quietly.

[kiley]

Oh boy, thanks for the belly laugh! I needed it ... "I too used to leave quietly." Love it.

[dan Turner]

I NEVER left quietly. It is SO wrong that your mother married an asshole and you married a saint.

Dad