Of Matrimony and Pasta Sauce

I love food.

I love my wife.

I reflected on both over dinner tonight.

You see, my wife and I are both Italian, though she is only half and the wrong kind of Italian to boot. But that is a story for another post. Anyhow, when we first got married we both had very different ways of making that staple of Italian cuisine, pasta sauce. When she first made hers for me, I immediately recognized how different it was from mine. It was good, but it wasn't quite right in my paradigm of cooking. After tasting my sauce for the first time I got the distinct impression she felt the same way. It was good, just very different and completely foreign in some ways.

For a few years I tried to get her to see how she was cooking her sauce wrong and how I was doing it right. In my defense, she did the same to a lesser degree. We would take turns making it just to show the other one up in a very loving, fun and yet mildly competitive manner. We often joked that we should have a dinner party and do blind taste tests among our guests to see whose sauce was better. After we had kids, we had our guinea pigs. Turned out to be a tie.

As the years went on something began to happen. Whenever it was her turn to cook the sauce, I would sneak a little of my own seasoning or add a little extra oregano or garlic while we were in the kitchen talking and enjoying the aroma therapy of a good Italian kitchen on a Sunday. Likewise, whenever I cooked she would nuzzle up to me and playfully add a little extra wine or gently ask me to cook the sausage a little longer before I added the tomatoes. And I would because I began to think nothing of it and so loved having her close to me. Slowly, I noticed that over time I was adding less garlic and using more wine. She was putting in more oregano and a smidge more garlic.

What was true of our relationship, was true in our Sunday sauce. We were becoming blended. The two very different people who were still maintaining vestiges of their independence while merging into a married couple were slowly, beautifully creating a new pasta sauce that was a reflection of their union. Now if you are actually still reading, you may be confused. You have to understand that to a proper Italian food is life so this makes perfect sense to me. Food is a metaphor as was our cooking a metaphor for our marriage. I came to realize that my sauce was better with more red wine and really well cooked sausage just like my life was so much better with her. What was once very two different things has merged into something that is better, sweeter and stronger. Yes, I know longer recognize my own sauce from hers, it just doesn't matter. What there is now is so much better than before.

Tonight we had chicken cacciatore. As I sat across from my bride this evening at dinner, while the baby was crying "all done!" and my oldest was talking about his cello lesson I looked at her as I ate. I was acutely aware of how much better my life and my cooking is because of her. It has been a long week. She has not been feeling well lately and I've been working too much. Still, there is this closeness, intimacy if you will that pervades my thinking whenever I think of her. With every bite I could detect a kick of oregano and a stronger hint of red wine. Two flavors blended together. Good by themselves. Better together. Just like us.

Peace and good food to all.