Eatdrink Waterloo & Wellington #2 August/September 2018

46 |August/September 2018
eatdrink.ca |@eatdrinkmag
The Lighter Side
Give Peas a Chance
By DARIN COOK
It is not surprising that romantic unions
occur over a common love of certain
foods, as dictated by the adage that
the way to one’s heart can be through
the stomach. Less often will you see a couple
bonding over a meal liked by one individual
but not by the other. Such incompatibilities,
though, can provide insights into how
relationships work. It was definitely
not my culinary skills that urged
my wife to enter into holy
matrimony with me, but it
was my cooking during our
courtship that taught us both
some relationship lessons.
When we were dating, the
first meal I cooked for my future
wife was my signature dish, one far more
elaborate in my mind than in reality. I called
it Chicken and Peas over Rice. By cooking for
her in the early stages of our dating, I thought
I was proving that I was not useless as a
potential mate, and I was under the illusion
that it was more romantic to surprise her
with a homemade dish than to let her in on
what to expect for dinner. I may have had this
recipe down pat — open a can of soup and a
container of sour cream for the sauce, split
open a bag of frozen peas, boil Minute Rice,
cut boneless chicken breasts into cubes. But it
is stupefying that I thought it was worthy of
serving to a girl I was trying to impress.
A few days after I made this meal she told
me, “I hate peas, but I like you, so I ate them,
and now peas aren’t so bad.” Never would I
have guessed that love could edge someone
towards liking more vegetables. Up to that
point she had known she liked me, but by
eating those peas she learned just how far she
would go for our relationship. She could have
easily gone the other way, thinking, “I was on
the fence about whether I liked this guy and it
doesn’t seem worth it to eat something I don’t
like, so it may be time to call it quits.”
But that did not happen. The peas had not
driven her away. However I wanted to avoid
giving her any more reasons to stop eating
with me. I had learned my lesson and decided
to ask more questions about what she liked
eating. I found out she liked Mexican and Asian
food, and not long after we got engaged over a
platter of Mexican-Asian nachos: a successful
fusion dish with successful results.
After twelve years of marriage and
the addition of two sons to our fold,
I still try to impress my wife with
my cooking. Although I do a lot
of things wrong in the kitchen,
even when meticulously
following a recipe, I hope that
my attempts remind her that I
wasn’t such a bad catch after all.
And when I take over the kitchen I
always ask, even if slightly uncertain after all
these years, whether she likes persimmons, or
bamboo shoots.
To this day, especially when we are trying
to get our two sons to try new foods, my wife
says, “You know, I really hated peas until the
first time your dad cooked dinner for me.”
And I reply with, “Actually, your mother
did not know how much she liked me until
she tried peas. Only then did she realize she
would do anything for me. And look where it
got her: she has me and she likes peas.”
I still make Chicken and Peas over Rice
for our family of four. I know it may be
unrefined, but I make it with love every time,
because it could very well be one of those
links in our relationship chain that made our
love grow stronger. That first meal may not
have been the way to my wife’s heart, but she
learned that she can tolerate certain things
for love. And I learned the importance of
asking more questions.
DARIN COOK is a regular Eatdrink contributor who
lives and works in Chatham-Kent.