What's for dinner?

After much deliberation, I finally decided what to make for dinner. This is getting harder and harder--for me. I just can't think of anything to make, I just stare in the cupboards thinking, "We had that yesterday..." when we really probably didn't have it yesterday but a few days ago.

Today I made stroganoff. We had it on potatoes, which Andrew thought was a little weird. I told him that he'd never been to Russia, so he didn't really know how Russians eat stroganoff and since it's a Russian dish, we were having it with potatoes. I only ever had oil or ketchup on noodles in Russia.

It was good, but I started cooking so late that we barely had time to eat and clean up before we had to leave for dance practice.

Odd...we got home early today, too, so I technically should have been able to have dinner out earlier, right? Wrong.

Andrew is little help when it comes to food choices. He's one of those "regulars" who just likes "the usual." I mean, it took him how long in Jordan to branch out from his falafel sandwich to try foul (pronounced "fool" not "fowl")? I think he finally tried the foul six weeks after we got there...and then he would just rotate between the two: falafel, foul, falafel, foul.... He went out for lunch every single day we lived in Jordan (except Friday, which was Sunday), and there wasn't even a point to asking, "So, what did you try today, dear?" because he didn't try anything new. Ever.

***

When we were on our honeymoon in Italy, I thought that he had tried a lot of foods because he would always spend a long time pouring over the menu, fooling me into thinking that he was going to branch out. Every single night we went to a pizza place and every single night he got a margherita, which is a plain cheese pizza. Although, once when we were in Venice, I convinced him to split a Viennese pizza with me (don't--they put hot dogs on the pizza). Even now, he'll look at pizza menus or talk about all sorts of pizzas only to order/make a plain cheese or, heaven forbid, pepperoni pizza.

***

As another example, Andrew took me out to lunch one day last semester because I was "having a hard day." The first trimester can be brutal. He surprised me and took me to a burger place, but when I started crying, he let me choose the restaurant (how embarrassing, I cried because I didn't want a hamburger--it's hormones, I tell you). So, we went to Taco Bell. I ordered just a regular bean burrito for 89 cents. I wasn't really in a mood for eating. Well, after I ordered, it was Andrew's turn (naturally). He was caught off guard so just said what he read last, "I'll have a seven-layer burrito." I thought that sounded really good, but I had already ordered, so I just decided to be happy with my bean burrito. I was, however, absolutely shocked that Andrew would order a burrito with a "warm, soft, flour tortilla wrapped around seasoned rice, hearty beans, a blend of three cheeses — cheddar, pepperjack and mozzarella — crisp, shredded lettuce, diced ripe tomatoes, cool sour cream, and chunky guacamole." I mean, my husband would never purposely order something with tomatoes or guacamole of any kind, ripe and chunky or not.

I told him how proud I was of him, "Wow, honey. You're really branching out today. You ordered something with tomatoes and guacamole."

"Agurhghu..." he moaned, "I didn't know it had guacamole. I was planning on giving you the tomatoes, but what am I going to do with the guacamole?"

"Why did you order it if you didn't want half the stuff the comes on it?"

"Because my turn came up so fast that I couldn't remember what I usually get so I just said something so..."

In the end, we ended up trading, which was fine with me. I didn't know that Andrew had a "usual" at Taco Bell, though. It's one of his least favorite restaurants. I mean, he would rather go to a burger place than to Taco Bell. Talk about weird.

***

Last night, Andrew's family went out to dinner with Andrew and Josie and pretty much everyone but me. I was at a meeting. Andrew told me he'd bring me some "left-overs, ha, ha." I said that he had better after a sarcastic laugh like that at the end of his sentence.

So, when I got home there was a nice sub sandwich, or, for all the Utahns, a hoagie, sitting on the table waiting for me (thanks, Karen!). It was the "classic" something-or-other with meat and tomatoes and pickles and lettuce and I'm not really sure what else because after my 3 hour meeting I was starving, so the sandwich was in my tummy in no time.

"Andrew," I asked, "What kind of sandwich did you get?"

"Some spicy Italian thing." he replied.

"No vegetables?" I asked.

"Of course I had vegetables." he said.

"Lettuce doesn't count as a vegetable. It's like, just water and fiber." I said.

"How'd you know?" he asked, amazed that I had guessed his vegetable.

"That's all you ever get on your sandwich." I said. So he decided to test my theory.

"Did I get pickles?" he asked.

"No." I quickly responded.

"Tomatoes?"

"Are you kidding me? If you were feeling exotic you might throw on a few olives, but you don't strike me as being in an exotic mood."

With that his mouth dropped open. "I thought about getting olives but decided not too because that would have been too adventurous for today."

***

And thus we see that I shouldn't worry about what to fix for dinner because my husband is just fine with "the usual."

Oh, by the way, I put onions in tonight's dinner. Andrew ate them because I made them too difficult to pick out. I took note, "Hey, you ate your onions instead of picking them out...and you didn't die!"

"I'm still waiting..." he said.

And I'm just waiting for the day when I get his death certificate (we all know I'm going to live longer because I eat my vegetables). For cause of death it will say, "Ate too many onions which his wife chopped up really small and hid in his dinner," instead of, "Old age." Knowing him, he would convince someone to put it on there before he dies just to make me laugh. Isn't he sweet?