This is bound to come out sooner or later, so I might as well let the cat out of the bag: The very first time I cooked for Nathan I made chicken pot pie and burned scorched cremated charred it beyond recognition. Obviously, I’m not the first girlfriend to utterly fail the partner-who-will-prepare-delicious-meals-til-death-do-us-part test (aka, the Donna Reed blot), but at least we had a safety net: Nathan was finishing up his culinary degree at the prestigious Johnson & Wales University.
But did I let this flub erase my credibility in the kitchen? Silence me from giving my two cents? Heck no. I was constantly at Nathan’s elbow when he was whisking together roux, tressing stuffed pork tenderloin with twine, chopping summer tomatoes and basil for homemade marinara. My advice had a common refrain: “At Macaroni Grill we did it like this.” That’s right. I thought that two summers waiting tables (not cooking) at a national chain restaurant was enough to go toe-to-toe against a graduate from one of the best culinary programs in the nation. (Truth be told, I did pick up some invaluable life skills: I can write my name in crayon upside down and knot my own Looney Tunes tie.) It didn’t take long for Nathan to make fun of me—and yet, it was like a nervous tick I couldn’t stop. It was as if the sub-par Italian eatery was inextricably intertwined with my soul, and even an exorcism by the Pope himself couldn’t cast it out.
