Finding your Voice

Food Wars

So as time went on and things seemed to be going well we agreed for Friend Guy to actually move in. My girls were not thrilled with this, but they also didn’t like school so I wasn’t basing my life choices on their likes and dislikes. I was still home on disability, but getting stronger every day and the business my best friend and I started seemed to be taking up most of my alone time. We built our own website, did our own mailing lists, did eblasts and I learned a computer language I had no idea even existed. We did what we loved and we put it into a business plan and the next thing you know a tag line was created and we were live “Good Food Brings People Together” It sure does. We would cater and do dinner parties, we would do cooking lessons and cooking parties and delivery flyers to other businesses and homes all over the surrounding towns. We would deliver a healthy choice to take out for dinner every single night of the month and we even got involved in a fundraiser where we fed a family in need every day for a year and had the community match our donations. It was great. It was fun, it was a lot of work and I didn’t have to sit. What I noticed is that whenever we cooked together it was silent. No talking, except maybe me pretending to be on my own cooking show. At first I didn’t notice it and then it became weird. We finally realized that NO ONE ever helped us in the kitchen and we were always in there alone through our lives and never had anyone to talk to. So when in there together, we reverted back to knowing what we knew and acting how we would if we were home alone. Friend Guy didn’t eat a lot of my food. I love food, more than I love my children, but don’t tell them. They already know, but it’s not nice to really say out loud. I think the grocery store is the land of possibilities. Other women like shoe shopping or expensive jewelry. Don’t get me wrong I like those things too, but I won’t drop money at the mall as I would in the grocery store. I could be in there for hours. Looking at ingredients and thinking of all the wonderful things I could make to make someone feel good. I have learned that cooking is my language of love. It helps me express my feelings for someone by showing them, through my food, how much they mean to me. There is nothing better than watching someone enjoy the fruits of your labor. This did not happen many times with Friend Guy. He didn’t eat spicy, he didn’t eat ethic, he didn’t eat much of anything that had flavor and my food was lost on him. It was a personal insult to me when he wouldn’t try something or because it had pepper on it, it was too spicy. Oh man, you haven’t seen spicy yet. Over the years my children have adapted a “foodie” type mentality. I know brought on solely by me and that I cook like I am at a restaurant most nights. They had homemade baby food and homemade snacks, they had Tilapia and Clams over Couscous and London Broil with Chimichuri sauce. Over the years I never really had to consider someone else’s eating habits. So we ate what I liked and that’s how they grew up. They knew that not liking or even trying something I made hurt my feelings and it did. It really did. But friend Guy never got that and we had many an argument over food. It would be like if I liked football, which I totally do and I made fun of his team week after week. Yes it’s in jest, but knowing what a loyal fan he was, I wouldn’t do that cause he would take it personally. He never seemed to get that. Night after night I would make meals fit for a king, set the table and wait. Wait for him to make a face or say it smelled funny or that he didn’t like it. Night after night I had to ask midway through dinner “Is it good?” and his response “Oh yea it’s ok” The effort in which it takes me to make a meal is nothing, being it is something I love to do, but the effort it seemed to take him to dash my dreams, make me feel bad and unappreciated came with a swift blow that I’m not even sure he knew he was doing. Or maybe he did. Liking something someone does for you is one thing, but appreciating it….well that’s a totally different thing. The effort, the time, the care someone puts into doing something for another, regardless of if you like it or not should always be appreciated. That is one things I KNEW I wanted in a partner, something I knew I needed. Something I hadn’t found yet and was beginning to think Friend Guy didn’t possess this quality. And yet…I cooked on.

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