Good news and Dinner

Today Boyfriend Jon celebrated a huge success. I am so proud to announce that he has self published his first book on Smashwords. Jon wrote this story originally before we met and I've had the privilege to watch it transform through several revisions. It's a sweet, but realistic (if you can call talking animals with armor and swords realistic) tale to kick of the Guineawick Series. 

I'm not saying this just because he's my boyfriend. This story is well written and he agonized over the plot and character developments for months. It's a short light read that will be worth your time. Besides...it's free. You can check it out here. 

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/130321

So to celebrate, i offered to cook a nice homemade meal for him. Whatever he wanted. Boyfriend Jon leaned back into the cushions of the couch and pondered for a moment with a goofy grin on his face, still riding the high of the 10 downloads so far. Then he grinned even wider and looked at me and said "Chili Dogs". 

"Are you kidding or being serious?" I asked dubiously. 

"No, totally serious." he responded, nodding decisively. 

I thought hard. My dad had made sure we all knew some decent basic recipies from his standard menu. But Chili Dog had never come up. I ended up having to ask Boyfriend Jon what a Chili Dog was. 

He was aghast again. This is not the first time a seemingly "normal" dinner meal was something that never graced our table. 

I was 18 or so before i had my first ever taco and burrito. It was at a friend's birthday party and i was amazed. I brought the idea back to dad and he agreed to try it. My mother was not so enthused. 

She has what we refer to as Food Allergies to keep it simple for waiters. Although she's not allergic to anything, she does get massive migraines based on the food she consumes. So our dinner table, never had any hot spices, too many onions, mustard, aged cheeses (mozzarella and american were fine but nothing else), no fresh baked yeast breads (she believes that the yeast is still alive after it comes out of the oven so she needs to wait a day for the yeast to 'die'. don't ask...i don't know where she got that logic), Lima beans (we as kids were still forced to eat them, but she didn't have to), citrus juices or zest, complicated gravy's, curry, sour cream or nuts. That's just the major things. She won't eat standard apples from the store because the peels have a "chemical" that organic apples don't. And other things like that. 

We were constantly hearing "i can't eat that" and having to check food labels against her list which grew every year. The food we got was plain and my brothers claimed it was tasteless. We learned to cope, mostly through garlic. 

I can't say i blame her for her caution either. I've seen her in the hospital throwing up, with the blinds drawn and we have to talk in whispers so her head doesn't pound. And my mom is TOUGH. She went through shoulder replacement surgery with no pain killers other than TYLENOL! 

So in the end when we parred down the burritos to food that mom could eat...it was tortilla round, re-fried beans, lettuce, plain cooked hamburger and some cheese. It wasn't nearly as appetizing as what i had tasted at the birthday party. 

So I know i missed out on a bunch of things, and sometimes Boyfriend Jon looks at me with pure shock that I've never had a Manwich or chili dogs, fried rice or chow mein, or something else that was a major staple of his childhood. To be honest i can't remember the last time i had a taco. 

And it's not a matter of being resistant to try things, but i don't automatically think of the same kind of celebratory food. For me, luxuries were Jeiger schnitzle, Eggplant parmesean, paprika chicken, and Perrogies. All in all i'm very interested in trying out chili burgers and seeing how i like them. We'll see how it goes.