Though we are no longer together, we talk food every time we speak and always ask what the other is having for dinner
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For our first date – a picnic on the grassy banks of the Molonglo River near Canberra – the man I would marry brought the tartan blanket (tick), the wine (tick), a crusty baguette (tick), the cheese (tick), and then the ka-boom of a chicken and grape salad he’d made from a recipe in a gourmet magazine. His score flew off the charts.
I’d met no other male who browsed gastro porn for inspiration. His culinary romance drew me to him, deaf to what would ultimately become the cautionary tale of too many cooks spoiling the broth.
We clashed in the kitchen often. Over recipes, over whether the meat was too rare or the oven temperature too high, over how much seasoning, the thickness of the sauce, the use of butter or oil or both. We both liked cooking and neither wanted to cede control. The meals we conjured together were often a triumph, our kitchen contretemps as beloved as the blackened skillet that gets better with every scalding.
