To Do List 2009: Cook with Meat

All you women crowd in close now. I want to tell you something that will make you jealous to your core.

My husband makes dinner in my house.

Yep, I said it. It's true. I plan the menus, I do the shopping, but when it comes to meal prep, it's all him.

Well, I throw in a casserole or premade something-something here and there, just so he doesn't get burned out.

But dinner is typically his responsibility.

It's because I can't cook. I can bake my hiney off, but I can't cook. The times I've tried have been so disastrous that he'd just rather I didn't, anymore.

The first time I cooked for him, I learned that pork chops have to be appropriately thin to be cooked in a skillet for 2 minutes on each side. Otherwise, your date will believe you're trying to kill him with food poisoning.

Early on, when we started living together, I learned that you can't just leave chicken in the oven until you're darn well ready to eat it. Otherwise, it takes three or four cans of Dr. Pepper just to make it go down.

When we moved to Santa Cruz, I learned that the same goes for roasting cashews for Cashew Chicken. Your boyfriend will get tears in his eyes after smelling crock-pot cashew chicken all day only to be told that the essential ingredient has been burned to a crisp.

So I don't try much with meat anymore. After we got married, though, I got it into my head that every woman should know how to grow a garden and roast a chicken.

So one day, when I was home from work for one reason or another, I went to the Fancy Grocery Store in town and bought a chicken. I followed the directions, I put it in a pan, and I roasted the ever-loving heck out of that chicken.

I served my beautiful bird with a salad and homemade biscuits. I dug in, my stepson dug in ... and I noticed that my dear husband was pushing his chicken around on the plate.

"Don't you like it?" I asked, my heart falling to my shoes because I already knew the answer.

"Not really," he admitted, pleading silently not to be kicked to the couch for the night.

FAIL.

I'm sticking with casseroles. There's a lot less blood, sweat and heartache there.