Cooking for Mark

Since Mark has been under the weather, I have become the shopper in chief and cook in this house. I hate shopping, truly hate it. Mark loves shopping, loves it so much that he has been shopping online to fulfill his urges while he is 'under the weather'. Every day, boxes and packages arrive and our letter carrier is beat, but that's another story.

I went grocery shopping yesterday. I dealt with the shoppers who leave their carts blocking the aisle. I dealt with the frustration of finding out that I needed one more thing that was clear across the other side of the block long store. And I ignored the messy, wet, checkout conveyor belt, that passed my purchases to the cashier who was chewing gum while casually passing my stuff over the scanner. You have to keep an eye on that screen above the cashier just to make sure all those things on sale were really on sale. So I did the grocery shopping all by myself and I spent half of what Mark would have spent. Anyway, I took it all home, schlepped it up the stairs, and put it all away. Then I started to cook dinner.

I hate to cook. I simply cannot enjoy a meal that takes me longer to cook than it takes me to eat. But it's for Mark, so I sucked it up and started cooking. Pork chops smothered with apples, and a nice little Caesar salad. I love those salad kits they sell at the supermarket. Makes it so easy, never mind the salmonella. Dinner, to my surprise, turned out to be pretty good. The apples were a little overwhelmed by the nutmeg I lost while cooking them. It asked for just a small amount, but I accidentally dropped the whole thing in there. Still, it was edible and I liked it. Mark sat across from me and tried to make me believe he thought dinner was just fine. He didn't make the snarly face he sometimes makes when I ruin his breakfast, and he tried real hard to make it look like he ate most of his dinner. It's a little trick he does where he rearranges all the food on his plate, spreads it all around, and then announces, "I'm full. Delicious dinner sweety." It's why my dogs get diarrhea, too much under the table feeding. Anyway, dinner was good enough. Now somebody needs to clean the kitchen.