He: Why are you eating pizza for breakfast?
Me: It’s left over from last night. You ate 4
pieces. I only had two. These are mine.
He: But why are you eating them for breakfast?
Me: Because I want to.
He: Why don’t you eat a breakfast for breakfast?
Me: Because I don’t want to.
He: Pizza is not healthy for breakfast.
Me: So don’t eat it.
He: I just don’t want you to get sick.
Me: From eating 2 pieces of pizza?
He: Mutters something I can’t hear but I think it’s
“you’re impossible.”
Substitute anything that has sugar or butter in it—
or a Diet Coke—for pizza and that conversation will be repeated every time I sit down to eat.
Some couples have problems in the bedroom. We don’t. Some couples have problems about money. We don’t.
We have problems in the kitchen.
Ever since my husband started cooking, he became a different person from the person I fell in love with.
If I had only known. But we never discussed meatloaf when we were wooing.
Growing up, the kitchen was the most important room in my house. Food was love. Food was health.
Food was security. My grandmother was always saying to me, “Bubala, eat, eat. You’re too thin. There are
children starving in Europe.” Her kitchen was like a warehouse of food.
My husband has turned into my grandmother.
My husband and I have absolutely nothing in common when it comes to food. He watches Jacques Pepin.
I watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. They don’t cook.
My husband should have married my grandmother. They’d cook, they’d eat, they’d discuss what they cooked and what they ate.
There were no Celebrity Chiefs in my grandma’s day.
But her chicken soup alone could have made her one.
My grandma never bought any food in a box. She had to see it. She grated her own hamburger meat because she didn’t trust what the butcher might mix in.
She never had measuring spoons—she just knew. And she never owned a cookbook. Actually, I don’t know if my husband could deal without the measuring spoons
and the cookbooks.
If I donated all the food I have in my kitchen now, I could make a dent in world hunger. If I had a lottery machine, kept cigarettes over the sink and porno magazines under the sink, I could open three bodegas.
Compared to people who have too much of everything, I don’t have too much. But compared to people who don’t have much of anything, I have too much.
My husband clips recipes which end up all over the house. I throw out things that are all over the house.
He likes to make recipes from the New York Times that call for ingredients he’ll never use again. After he uses them once, I throw them out when he’s sleeping.
He wants me to tell him how delicious what he cooks is. Even if I lie. He comments on what I cook and doesn’t lie. Then he goes to the refrigerator and looks for something to eat.
He uses about 12 pots, 42 dishes, and 56 pieces of silverware when he cooks. When he puts something down I put it in the dishwasher and he goes crazy.
I open the windows when he cooks because as soon as the smoke alarm sees him, it goes off.
At least once a day he will say to me, “Make sure you eat the leftover blah, blah, blah because it’s going bad. I don’t.
There used to be a column in The Ladies Home Journal called “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” What do you think?
Hopefully, restaurants will open soon.
You’re just a button click away and I’d love
to hear from you.
About your world,
your family, your joys and frustrations, growing up, growing older, even recipes– even though I stopped cooking–by request–years ago.
Goodbye until next time…
Hope your day turns out as well as I hope (but doubt) mine will,
Gingy (Ilene)
Ilene, in the middle of the night my stomach was roiling
And then I Read all of your posts first listen. Afterwards I was able to eat some toast and butter. I loved you the first day that I met you and the only day I spent with you. At your home with Stanley. I’m not very comfortable with most human beings. But with you a totally different story! This was the real thing in the room with me. Earthy, blazingly original, damn funny, and welcoming. The scarf was terrific too. I’m so glad that you have all of those lovely “first responders” with you and your grandchildren beaming through their phones to you and having them six feet from your eyes. I loved seeing your life though your photographs, family stories, humor, tragedies. What you say about grown children could not be more true. I want to kick them in their smarty pants bottoms but I then I have been torturing myself that I was the same way with my parents. I wish your grandmother was my grandmother but I am so sorry why it was that you came to her. I’m from a different generation than you but I relate to all of your stuff! I was in love with Gable and Grant too, still am. I am so glad you don’t cook; I don’t either . I can’t wait to see what you are writing you are 100! Love Terry’s friend, Janice
Like always, VERY FUNNY!!!
Like you I can’t wait for restaurants to open and things come back to normal.
I think left over Chinese food is better for breakfast than pizza.
Your blogs are so enjoyable. They just make me chuckle! Be well and best regards! Barbara
Gingy/Granny-This might be one of my favorite posts yet and there is some real stiff competition. You had me laughing from the beginning all the way to the last word. First off, I love that you eat pizza for breakfast, I mean after all, that is breakfast of a champion. I do not need to visualize ethos because I have witnessed it first hand and it is hysterical to watch HAHA in the best way possible. Good thing you are a great cook!!!LOL and so true about the fire alarm. This post is so real, which I love about all your posts. Food conversations and conversations that revolve around good are no joke. I cannot stop re-reading this and laughing. Oh how I adore you and your writing is so refreshing. I cannot wait for the next post and for the next meal of yours 🙂 XOXO
Your posts always make me so happy. 🙂
I have two questions:
Why did our grandmothers constantly want to fatten us up?
Why is it always the women who have to eat up the food that’s about to spoil?
Thank you for inspiring what seem to be some of the great existential questions of our time–and bringing us a laugh while we ponder them!
xxx
One of the things I liked most you made about 60 years ago maybe and it was easy to make I know because you told me what was in it.
I t was noodles with sour cream and garlic salt and probably pepper..and I can still remember the taste.
You did not use measuring spoons or cups …..
One evening maybe you might take out a clipping from a news paper and make those noodles and pretend the clipping was a recipe.
I think this was a wonderful laugh for me…it is a great funny blog.
If I were to rate conflicts with husbands, I would put kitchen habits in a weak place.
That makes me happy for you.
My husband specializes in melted cheese sandwiches and I am at my best serving a satisfying meal from leftovers.
Your diary is such fun. Thanks for the amusement.
Hope you’ve had your vaccinations. It lightens the worry a bit.
Gingy, always an enjoyable read. Hope your well.
Hi Gingy, Hysterical and true, as usual. You are so witty. My partner and I always ate all our meals separately before COVID. He ate out every meal, I kid you not. I’m vegetarian, he’s carnivorous. For a year, I’ve cooked for him, he cleans up. It’s worked out great. I make him meat or fish 4 times a week or so. He says he likes everything, When he has a suggestion, I sulk. So he doesn’t have any. We get take-out once a week. I’m happy to cook, it’s my pleasure. I’m like your husband, always printing out new recipes, worrying about the leftovers going bad. I’m glad the bread-making fad is over. Too fattening and tempting! Thanks for your blog. You rule!! XX
Ahhh……another good lift just when my spirits need lifting! However do you know exactly when to send these?
Yes, the “smoke alarm” thing is a real phenomena. I always warn my husband he’s going to set the alarm off and he always argues that there’s no smoke, no smell of anything burning while I run around opening windows….and then the alarm goes off…and he still claims nothing’s burning!
Love you my dear ❤️
Dear Gingy;
I love to cook and bake. I call it relaxation therapy. The best part of cooking is that my husband does not mind cleaning up my very messy kitchen
I love to cook and bake. It is relaxation therapy for me. The best part is that my husband does not mind cleaning up my very messy kitchen.
Food my mother used to make. Ugh. My mother was of German descent and my father’s family was Hungarian. It was my mother’s job to always cook with my father’s taste buds in mind so we had a lot of stinky and odd looking food in the house. Hungarian’s will eat anything. In the old country they ate every part of an animal. Nothing went to waste. So my mother cooked kidney stew, blood sausage and pickled pig’s feet in gelatin and my father loved it all. For those who don’t know about kidney stew…it can really smell up a house! We also had sour egg soup, string bean soup and potato soup, all made with a fair amount of vinegar and spices. I can remember looking down into a pot of sour egg soup and seeing what I thought were “eyeballs” swirling around in the pot. To honor her German heritage, she made delicious stuffed cabbage rolls, ground her own pork to make the most wonderful sausage and made the best pot roast in town, cooked in the crusty old pot that my sister still has to this day. It still makes the best pot roast. But to me, my mother’s crowning glory was her spaghetti sauce. She would save the bones from the pork and beef roasts and put them in the bottom of the pot and then cover them up with lots of tomato sauce and simmer for what seemed like an eternity. I loved spaghetti day. I have never been able to duplicate her spaghetti sauce but I do have her recipe for stuffed cabbage rolls. In fact I made some recently. I have to give my mother credit. She was working with a very tight food/grocery budget back then. My siblings and I never knew that at the time but I as we learned later on, it certainly humbled us. She did the best she could to please everyone. My husband doesn’t cook. He likes to make toast and swathes it in butter.
If I close my eyes, I can picture my mother in the kitchen, wearing her housedress and apron, stirring a big pot of sauce and can almost smell that wonderful aroma.
Aaah…those were the days.
The restaurants in Richmond, VA, are open, and there’s a wonderful French restaurant named Can Can where my husband took me at the end of February for my birthday. At the present time, Can Can only takes reservations and is only open during certain hours. Of course, the food was as good as always, but because of social distancing, only so many people were allowed in the facility. There was none of the usual din, and I actually heard the music being played and what my husband was saying to me!
“I open the windows when he cooks because as soon as the smoke alarm sees him, it goes off.” LOL!! We must be married to the same guy. It’s good to know I can look forward to another 25 years of this.
Ilene,
I think this is hysterical. And I think your marriage can be saved.
Thank you for today’s smiles.
Love, Nancy
What a great article. (I love pizza for breakfast!) My mother was a wonderful start- from-scratch cook. Snapper soup starting with the snapping turtle. Chicken fricassee starting with the ancient chickens in our backyard coop. I love to cook but realized early on that focusing on food would turn me into Jabba the Hut before I hit 30. I settled for baking – a very by-the-recipe cooking form.
My third husband liked to cook but his results were dicey. He wore his ventilator to chop onions (he was a scientist) then looked at me and said “There is no such thing as too many onions!” While you imagine how that recipe turned out, I will be out back hurling.
I grew up in my parents’ kitchen. Long breakfasts on the weekend with conversation that went on over coffee. Like you, the kitchen was my favorite place in the house.
Thank you for your blog. It always delights me. (My hearing aids are in my ears. I can never find my cell and I am finally putting my car keys in the same pocket of my purse every time.) Life is good.
Cindy
You are very lucky to have a husband who cooks. Just train him to clean up after cooking!
You are very lucky to have a husband who cooks! Enjoy the food and close your eyes to the mess!
Dear Gingy,
As always, I love love love your blog. My mother was like your grandmother — the best cook I have ever encountered in my whole life, in or out of a fancy restaurant! Love, Sally