Seasoned with Love

Have you ever noticed that most of the best chefs in the world are all men (roughly about 80-90%)? Have you also noticed that only a few food fanatics will actually go on raving about a particular chef or tell stories about their great deeds? Their fame is often forgotten in an evening and has most certainly been relegated into the realm of trivia by the time of their life's end. Yet strangely, how is it that stories of grandma's fried chicken, our favorite aunt's burmese style beef curry, and mom's hand-shredded fish and rice ball soup have attained nearly legendary qualities? These stories, and sometimes the recipes, are passed down between generations. During family gatherings, several at a table may even rave nostalgically about these dishes prepared so long-ago.

My wife and I both cook, but it's clear that our pursuit of cooking excellence have different aims. When a man cooks, he's making food to nourish his body. And when a man "gets into cooking", it's often about developing skills, learning technique, buying cool cookware, understanding technical elements about various foods, and understanding flavor combinations and textures. This is excellent cooking for a man. When a woman cooks, she's making food to care for someone. And when a woman "gets into cooking", she also develops skills and learn techniques, but these are learned so that she can care for someone she loves.

For a guy, it's hard to understand why their wife would get so angry at them for showing up just 30 mins late for dinner without calling. He's thinking, "she knows I'm working, and I have a big deadline tomorrow." A wise woman shared with me that when a woman cooks, it is seasoned with love. She literally pours out love when she prepares a dish. When a man realizes this, he'll put in the extra effort to get home ontime and fully take in this expression of love. I joke with my friends that my love language is food, and my wife speaks this with great fluency.

This past Thursday, my wife surprised me by preparing something special ... sort of an early Christmas gift.
This is one huge lobster kicking around and making lots of noise in our sink.

This is my wife holding the lobster in her right hand and holding the camera with her left.

This is that same lobster nicely cut up and waiting to be cooked (this is how I saw it after work).

This is the lobster right before our chopsticks began their vicious attack.

This is me preparing to dig into the lobster and drinking in deep because I know that my wife prepared this dish with LOVE.