2025, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized

Practicing Acceptance

27 Comments

(This is written somewhat tongue in cheek.)

One of the challenges of sharing a kitchen with Husband is his extreme fussiness regarding the foods he cooks and prepares. He has many preconceived expectations as to what goes with what, and is unhappy if the combinations aren’t exactly the way he wants them. When he seasons a dish, he spends quite a bit of time tasting and adding this and that til it is just right in his mind. I can’t tell the difference.

The same goes for his fussiness in pairings of different foods. I can usually put up with his demands for just the right main course with just the right sides. It is a little more difficult now that we are trying to empty our freezers before we move. We have agreed, for example, that we aren’t going to buy any more sausage, brats, or ground meat until the stuff we have is gone. There are a lot of sausages to be used up.

The other day I was pretty exasperated with him for stopping at the butcher shop and buying some ring bologna and summer sausage. I reminded him of all the brats and other sausage that we had that would work just as well as bologna. He insisted that he had to have the bologna because that is always what he has with the particular side dish he was going to have that evening. I told him that we would never get through the food we already had if he keeps this up, and that he might have to change some of his expectations for meals if we are to reduce the food in the freezers. He sighed and stated in a somewhat martyred tone that he would just have to start practicing acceptance regarding our meals. Husband says he owns his culinary idealism.

I am fortunate to be married to someone who loves to cook and loves good food. I just hope he doesn’t get too distressed as he has to change his ideas, at least temporarily, regarding our meals.

What do you have to practice acceptance of? Do you have inviolable expectations for some meals and food pairings?

27 thoughts on “Practicing Acceptance”

  1. During my last ten years in Taiwan, I would regularly have my mid-day meal with college students in a dining hall where everyone got “whatever had been cooked that day” by someone else who set the menu. Taiwan being a “food obsessed” culture, I would often be asked, “what’s your favorite thing to eat?” My response was often, “whatever I can swallow.”
    Though it may offend something ethnic in your cultural heritage, you can leave all of that meat behind when you move out.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. or stick it in the back seat on ice and put it in the new freezer when you arrive 8 hours later. or leave it in the freezer and move the freezer. put it on the truck last and take it off first and plug it in in the garage

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

        1. We plan to take a trip in early October with several coolers full of stuff from the freezer, as well as the cat in a crate so we can put the food in the freezer in the new house, and board the cat at the vet in Luverne until we are all.moved in later in the month.

          Liked by 3 people

  2. everyone has their quirks. you have to acknowledge that and get on with it.
    my wife goes crazy because every time i hit the kitchen it turns into a production that evolves into dinner for eight even though its just me.
    i had an avocado yesterday that was perfect and thought about making avocado toast when i got home. when i walked in the door it was oil in the pan toast in the toaster. slice the tomato, scoop the avocado fry the tomato butter and mayo the toast tomato on the toast fry the two eggs pullout and fry the veggie sausages assemble and devour.

    that never happens. in the door cooked meal with one pan in 15 minutes eat and done within 30. put an x on the calendar

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  3. The behavior of everyone I encounter every day. We all do things differently, have different likes, dislikes, mannerisms, quirks, annoying habits, etc. Walking out the door into the world implies acceptance of whatever is “thrown at you” that day.

    I also accept a lot of my wife’s faults. As she does mine. Except she still believes she can change some of my bad habits after 52 years together. Unh-uh. Ain’t gonna happen. “I gotta be meeeeeee!”

    The only meal that “must have the same sides” anymore is Thanksgiving dinner. I make the same dressing/stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy. The veggies can be different year to year, but are usually roasted broccoli or carrots, or green beans with almonds.

    Other than that, I’m open-minded about pairing mains with sides. Primary focus now is on eating healthy more than making a perfect meal.

    Chris in Owatonna

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      1. Good question. Maybe when you go from chuckling and tsk-ing at it to gritting your teeth and holding your tongue so you don’t complain for the umpteenth time about it?

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

  4. I’m trying to empty my freezer too. I doubt I have as much to go through as you, Renee, but my deadline looms. I’m closing on my new place September 4. Next week is my scheduled week up north and I need to go up there, like someone who’s been wandering through a desert needs water. I will take some frozen foods along with me for meals. All the business of packing and boxing stays here, of course.

    I’m not fussy about which side dish goes with a particular main course. It’s rare that I have a main course. I tend to nibble or eat small meals throughout the day. I’ll have a smoothie or boiled egg and fruit for breakfast, then skip lunch, have a small salad or fruit or a piece of cheese early afternoon, then have pesto and pasta with garden tomatoes for supper. One thing I am fussy about: the pasta should be orzo when you’re eating pesto. Orzo pasta is just perfect for pesto. Freshly cooked, then dolloped with a tablespoon of pesto and a garden tomato… Summer time heaven!

    I have a rough plan for my move. Pack stuff up here as quickly as possible, close on the purchase on September 4. Have a painter come and paint both bedrooms and the bathroom in the new place, then get the carpets cleaned there. Hopefully I can move stuff in after about a week of cleaning and painting. Then, once my current home is empty, cleaned and touched up, I will list it for sale. I’ve been a bit distracted with all of this, and I might have spotty attendance here for a while.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  5. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    In the deep of summer, specifically August, Bacon and Tomato Sandwiches must be paired with Sweet Corn. And Sweet Corn must have butter, salt and pepper. Thus sayeth the lord. This is the caviar of the Midwest. I agree with Chris, though regarding Thanksgiving. Some of those old recipes are deeply satisfying. Other than the Thanksgiving meal, BLTs and sweet corn is about my only inviolate pairing.

    Living with someone with Lewy Body Disease is a daily practice of acceptance. The hardest part to accept is husband’s inability to define the activities that are now dangerous to his welfare, when they were once perfectly acceptable. Like driving. I have had to accept Lou’s desire to drive and the necessity of me talking with him about how dangerous that would be to him and the public. And then he forgets and writes the Commissioner of Public Safety. But he forgets to send the letter. I just found another addressed envelope yesterday. Struthers Institute in Golden Valley has an in-person (as opposed to online) LBD support group. At the end of the month I am going to try it.

    God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…

    Liked by 7 people

    Reply

    2. i change my idea about living to be past 100 as i watch people live decrepit lives. quailty post 100 is now the incantation and id better get on the fitness regime more intently

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

  6. I do most of the cooking and also the meal planning and shopping, though dinner is the only meal we sit down and eat together. My meal planning usually starts with whatever needs to be used before it goes bad, cross indexed with trying to mix up the variety. Other than that there are no rigid combinations. I just try to get an appealing mix of protein, starch and green vegetable. Robin is on her own with regard to desserts.

    We have been together so long we have molded ourselves to each other’s quirks. There is no longer much conscious friction.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  8. I do have a hard time sometimes with Husband’s actions, or often lack of action, when he’s having a “slow day”. Very likely he’s doing the best he can, but I’m not always convinced that he’s making an effort.

    I do like the serenity prayer, which you all know:
    God grant me the serenity
    to accept the things I cannot change;
    courage to change the things I can;
    and wisdom to know the difference.

    I need to pay attention to that part about wisdom to know the difference…

    – Cole slaw along with anything that has barbeque sauce on it.
    – And some variety of milk along with dry cereal. I knew someone once who would use orange juice…

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  9. Moving, especially for those of a certain age, presents challenges. When my aunt Roberta was moving rather suddenly to assisted living, she had entrenched ideas of how her moving should go, and she didn’t let go of her standards. Those of us who were trying to help were negotiating a space between her and her son – her son’s refrain was “Ma! You don’t NEED that!” and we were dealing with her insistence that she needed to make a decision of what became of every last washcloth and plastic container. The move took place as scheduled, but “words were said”.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  10. I’m not too horribly fussy about sides and really any other part of cooking although I do love to cook. I’d have to love someone an awful lot to be able to live with hubbie’s standards. (of course neither of my wasbands was even remotely a decent cook). That being said, I did have an expectation that with YA being on a work trip for close to two weeks, I’d have a chance to plow through a lot of the food that we have in the cabinets in the freezer and the refrigerator and I’ve been completely derailed. First there was my birthday — several meals that didn’t get eaten from home because I was using all my birthday coupons and now I’ve been derailed by my bales. Pesto, two cherry tomato dishes, veggie bacon & tomato sandwich. I even made and froze some tomato sauce!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  11. My current practice of acceptance is that my blown up knee is most certainly going to make State Fair look different for me this year. The first couple of days after I hurt it, I was thinking State Fair might have to be done in a wheelchair or an electric scooter. That was my practicing acceptance then. I don’t think that’s gonna be the case at this stage of the game but the next 9 days will tell!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to billinmpls Cancel reply