Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Hell's kitchen

"I've got us a lovely supper," warns Va-vay.

"Oh yes, love, what's that?" I say from my bed, trying not to glance at the 'sick bin' that rarely leaves my bedside these days. Some days the mere idea of food is enough to make me hurl. I'm hoping today isn't one of them, though the rising bile at the back of my throat suggests otherwise.

"Spinach and potatoes," he announces.

"And?" I think, waiting for him to unveil the crowning glory of our evening meal that he's led me to believe awaits.

Some salmon? Steak? Even bean burgers or pasta would be alright. Maybe stew or pizza?

The pause stretches on uncomfortably long.

"Were you expecting... something else?" he starts, accusingly.

"No! Spinach and potatoes. How... lovely."

"I'm going to cook the potatoes so they come out all fluffy. You know how I showed you the other day, when you make them explode." Va-vay's little-boy enthusiasm for the ways of the kitchen is sometimes endearing, on other occasions (this one) just perplexing and annoying.

Briefly, I remember Va-vay doing a Nigella on me and bashing an innocent-looking baked potato with the blunt handle of a carving knife, because, or so he said, doing so led to a superior interior texture of spud. I tried to marvel at the sight of the thing's innards spread across the plate, but couldn't see quite what we were meant to be excited about.

"I thought that would be a good supper," he says, going all huffy.

"It is! It will be," I say, with a touch too much jollity.

He disappears into the kitchen. For much, much longer than it would take to cook some spinach and get some baked potatoes going. Eventually, well over an hour later he reappears.

"There's been a small delay," he says.

"What's going on?" I ask meekly.

"Oh, nothing," he says airily, as if I couldn't be expected to understand. "Just the potatoes cooking."

At nine thirty - more than two hours after Va-vay got home - supper makes it entrance. I'm desperate for food, as I alternate between cravings and aversions to the stuff.

"This isn't baked potatoes," I point out, in what even I realise to be a statement of the blindingly obvious.

"I could tell from your tone of voice you didn't want baked potatoes. So I've made this instead!"

"This" turns out to be potato and spinach gratin. Unfortunately, undercooked potato and spinach gratin.

We try to ignore that fact as we sit up in bed and listen to each other crunch through the potato. I wonder if a wobbly lower crown will survive the night. My mind turns to the Irish potato famine.

"Are you enjoying it?" asks Va-vay, in utter defiance of any realistic observation of the situation.

"Va-vay, I don't mean to be ungrateful or anything, but it's a bit undercooked."

"No, it's not!"

"Look, I'm sorry, but it is undercooked."

"Then just don't eat anymore," he tells me.

Sad to say, I'm so hungry I would eat a bag of mouldy old potatoes by now. I push on through to the end, then fall asleep.

A couple of days later, Va-vay has recovered his good humour and admits the gratin was not his finest culinary hour.

"Why didn't you just do the baked potatoes like you said?" I ask him.

"I wanted to do something nice for you," he says. "I could tell you didn't want a baked spud and spinach. It's alright for me, being a veggie face. You wanted something else." My heart wells.

Later, I confide in him that I'm nervous about a big Christmas meal with assorted people I haven't seen in months.

"You don't have to go," he says.

"I do, Va-vay. Really, they're expecting me to be there."

"If you stay here, I'll cook you a nice potato gratin."

He knows the way to a woman's heart, that man.

Posted 13 December 2007 14:52

Food Husband Mistakes

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