When I was single and lived alone, I could go for months eating exactly the same things, meal after meal, day after day. I would become enamored of some particular dish, and enjoy the heck out of eating it every single day, until suddenly I couldn’t stand the thought of making it for myself even one more time. Then I’d have to engage my brain and come up with something original, which I would do. And if I hit upon something I particularly liked, it would become my new BFF dish.
For several years, while I was in grad school, I ate an English muffin with butter and honey in the morning, a deviled ham sandwich with slivered onion for lunch, and some variety of Swanson’s T.V. Dinner every evening. Not the most nutritious fare, but I was young and busy and wasn’t in the mood to have to think up something to eat. Besides, I quite enjoyed my comfort meals, and looked forward to them.
After I married, I took a greater interest in cooking better meals, and became rather creative. Don inspired me, since he enjoyed cooking (and still does). He wasn’t taught to cook, though, as I was, so even though he was enthusiastic, I’ve always had better kitchen skills, and the two of us together made quite the chef.
Now, here it is, beaucoup years later, and because of our schedules and/or dietary needs, we find ourselves cooking and eating our own meals more often. I am usually gone over the lunch hour , and he cooks for himself. Almost every day he makes a Stroganoff-like dish from Quorn ground ‘beef’, sauteed onions and garlic, and fusilli noodles. “I always enjoy it, and I can never think of anything I’d like better,” he told me. I suddenly harkened back to those days of yore when I ate the same thing every day.
Even now, when left to my own devices, I tend to fall back on either a boiled egg and toast, or a grilled cheese sandwich, because, at least for this particular era of my life, there isn’t anything I’d like better.
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