By Kathy Miele
I needed to do several errands after work so now I was rushing home to start making dinner.
As I pulled up to the house, Steven was just getting out of his truck. “How was your day?” he asked as he unlocked the front door and grabbed some of the bags I was carrying.
“Busy,” I said as I went directly to the kitchen. “How was your day?” I asked as I pulled two hamburgers from the refrigerator and dropped them into a pan. Clicking the burner on I went back to the refrigerator and began grabbing lettuce and pickles.
“You know it might be easier if you took off your coat,” Steven suggested as I reached into the cabinet and grabbed the package of rolls.
I stopped for a second and realized he was right, I was still wearing my coat. Slipping it off, I draped it over a kitchen chair and began digging around in the freezer.
“OK, we’re out of vegetables so I’m going to say the lettuce on your burger will be the vegetable course.”
“That’s fine with me,” Steven said as he reached into the cabinet and took out two small dinner plates.
I was busy opening and closing all our pantry cabinets. “All right, I have absolutely nothing I can serve with the burgers,” I said with disgust.
“A burger is fine with me,” Steven insisted. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”
I yanked open the utensil drawer and grabbed a spatula to flip the burgers in the pan.
“This is ridiculous. I used to make really great meals!” I complained. “Now that the boys don’t eat with us most nights my cooking skills have completely fallen apart!”
“Quit being so hard on yourself,” Steven said as he sat on one of the stools by the counter. “I’m fine with just a burger.”
“I know but I was over at my sister’s the other day and it was just her and Tony and she made him this really great meal.”
“What was it?” Steven sounded interested.
“She had leftover steak… ”
“We haven’t had steak in a long time,” Steven interrupted.
“I know!” I agreed. “So anyway she takes the leftover steak and puts it on some ciabatta bread with roasted red peppers and fresh mozzarella cheese and puts it in a panini press.”
“That does sound good,” Steven agreed.
“Oh, she wasn’t done,” I continued. “While the sandwich was cooking she took fresh green beans and steamed them in the microwave, but because Tony doesn’t like green beans she sliced up a fresh cucumber for him.”
“Wow, he got his own vegetable?”
“Yup.” The burgers were done and I placed them on the buns and handed him his plate. “She even had a fresh fruit for his dessert.”
“He even got fresh fruit?” Steven was smiling as he picked up the squeeze bottle of ketchup and began to squeeze, but nothing came out. “Do we have another ketchup in the pantry?” he asked.
“Nope,” I sighed, “but I bet my sister has a backup bottle in her pantry.”
Steven could clearly hear the disgust in my voice. “Tony’s probably never run out of ketchup for his burger. Is this where I’m supposed to say I married the wrong sister?” Steven said with a laugh but the look on my face had him realize that it probably wasn’t the best time for a joke. “Because I would never, never say that.”
He leaned over and gave me a kiss before he started eating his burger, with no ketchup, and spent the next 10 minutes telling me how good it was.
