Food Glorious Food

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" - I know I heard this phrase a million years ago and probably thought very little about it. Makes men sound pretty simple, and as time has gone by, I'm discovering that to be true.

My husband is tall and pretty lean - honestly, if I had to get him through food it would have been a short courtship. My fabulous cooking skills have only been honed in the last few years. The person with the biggest issue about food has always been me, not him.

I knew to keep lots of good stuff to eat around the house for the boys as they were growing up - starting at about Jr. High, and all through high school I kept cheap stuff from Sam's that they could eat in mass quantities. I think I've probably purchased my last box of frozen taquitos - and hot pockets. I knew I was a pretty special mom as long as I had good grub in the house.

While they were in college, I became so popular when I came to town because I would always take them and their friends to dinner - big breakfasts were best - less expensive and no alcohol included.

In the past several years, I learned I could wow my dad when he came to visit with good food, and really good Dreyer's ice cream - OMG - he loves it. The last time he was able to visit, on the way to my house from the airport he asked if we could go to IHOP. Once we got to my house, he asked if I had any of that great ice cream. This obsession with the next meal has become more pronounced as time has gone by. Actually, I understand it - my dad's health has been precarious for several years, he's not able to do much for himself - variety and quality of food has become a high point of his day.

So why am I talking about this? Last night we went to my old boss/buddy Steve's house for dinner. It was wonderful - we took dessert which was ice cream, berries and chocolate sauce. By 10 it was time to go home, we had forgotten to have dessert and left it there for them to have for the weekend.

Well, before we went to bed, the husband began lamenting the fact that we forgot to have dessert. This morning before he left to play golf - he mentioned it again - that he didn't get to have his favorite dessert (it's now been elevated to his favorite dessert). Then, when I was headed to the store, he asked me to buy every exact thing we had taken over to Steve's last night, that we left there, so he could FINALLY have it tonight.

I'm not sure that buying him his new favorite dessert has anything to do with getting to his heart - this time I'm using food to help him move on to a new topic!