Jo's diet flabbergasted me when we began dating. She'd open a tub of goopy, unflavored yogurt and stir in seeds, berries and things that looked like she scraped them off the forest floor.
"I'm a vegetarian, too," I told her, in the way you'll tell a woman you're the Commandant of the Norwegian Marine Corps if you think it will get you somewhere.
"Your qualifications as a vegetarian are minimal," she said, rolling her eyes at my dinner of Triscuits and Fritos crushed in sour cream.
Jo is not only a vegetarian; she's a Certified Health Nut.
I played along for the first few years of our marriage, complimenting her on her meals of organic brown rice and fat-free cheese sprinkled with powdered acorns. After dinner, I'd sneak out to the shed where I'd stashed the salami and beer nuts.
Then I had a cholesterol test. When the results came in, the doctor read me the numbers.
"Is that high?" I asked.
"Compared to the Sears Tower, no," he said. "But it's still dangerous." He explained there is "good" cholesterol and "bad" cholesterol. I was glad to hear this. "Couldn't we just let them fight it out for themselves?" I asked.
The real solution was a low-fat, low-calorie diet. Within months, I'd cut my cholesterol in half. Although I still enjoy an occasional birthday burger or wild night out in a pizza house, for most of the year, Jo and I enjoy dinner hours of nourishing food and stimulating talk.
Then the corn season arrives.
On a certain day in mid-July, the aroma of fresh-picked local corn rides the breeze from a New Boston farm stand to Aledo, wafts south on Second Avenue and steals across our yard. As soon as the smell comes in one dining room window, civility flies out the other.
Jo and I immediately claw at each other for possession of the car keys. The victor speeds down the highway to the farm stand, while the loser sets the table with the instruments of our ruination.
Cooked corn, by itself, is full of health-enhancing antioxidants, and let's face it--I'm an oxidant waiting to happen.
But after bringing the cooked bounty to the table, Jo tears the top off the Morton Salt container and holds it upside down over her plate until her ear of corn disappears from view. I apply melted butter to my corn with a contractor-grade paintbrush. Halfway through the first ear, my blood pressure creates a pounding in my head that drowns out the sound of my crackling arteries. Between bites, we stare accusingly across the table at each other, each measuring the size of the other's ear of corn and feeling slighted. Conversation is a no-frills affair:
"Me want more."
"You go kitchen."
"Why me?"
"Your turn cook."
August is a dangerous month. Any time the number of ears of corn in the refrigerator is not divisible by two, domestic violence is likely.
By early September, we have sunk to the level of beasts. At feeding time, we grunt at each other as we wallow through the corn husks on the kitchen floor and belly up to the trough.
Then comes the day when one of us drives off to buy corn and returns empty-handed. Jo and I stand in the driveway, hugging and crying. The corn season is over. We drag ourselves into the house, wondering how we will survive the next ten months, ten long, desolate months that loom ahead of us like--
I can't think about this now. Jo drove out to the farm stand forty minutes ago.
Her come back soon. Me melt butter.
"I'm a vegetarian, too," I told her, in the way you'll tell a woman you're the Commandant of the Norwegian Marine Corps if you think it will get you somewhere.
"Your qualifications as a vegetarian are minimal," she said, rolling her eyes at my dinner of Triscuits and Fritos crushed in sour cream.
Jo is not only a vegetarian; she's a Certified Health Nut.
I played along for the first few years of our marriage, complimenting her on her meals of organic brown rice and fat-free cheese sprinkled with powdered acorns. After dinner, I'd sneak out to the shed where I'd stashed the salami and beer nuts.
Then I had a cholesterol test. When the results came in, the doctor read me the numbers.
"Is that high?" I asked.
"Compared to the Sears Tower, no," he said. "But it's still dangerous." He explained there is "good" cholesterol and "bad" cholesterol. I was glad to hear this. "Couldn't we just let them fight it out for themselves?" I asked.
The real solution was a low-fat, low-calorie diet. Within months, I'd cut my cholesterol in half. Although I still enjoy an occasional birthday burger or wild night out in a pizza house, for most of the year, Jo and I enjoy dinner hours of nourishing food and stimulating talk.
Then the corn season arrives.
On a certain day in mid-July, the aroma of fresh-picked local corn rides the breeze from a New Boston farm stand to Aledo, wafts south on Second Avenue and steals across our yard. As soon as the smell comes in one dining room window, civility flies out the other.
Jo and I immediately claw at each other for possession of the car keys. The victor speeds down the highway to the farm stand, while the loser sets the table with the instruments of our ruination.
Cooked corn, by itself, is full of health-enhancing antioxidants, and let's face it--I'm an oxidant waiting to happen.
But after bringing the cooked bounty to the table, Jo tears the top off the Morton Salt container and holds it upside down over her plate until her ear of corn disappears from view. I apply melted butter to my corn with a contractor-grade paintbrush. Halfway through the first ear, my blood pressure creates a pounding in my head that drowns out the sound of my crackling arteries. Between bites, we stare accusingly across the table at each other, each measuring the size of the other's ear of corn and feeling slighted. Conversation is a no-frills affair:
"Me want more."
"You go kitchen."
"Why me?"
"Your turn cook."
August is a dangerous month. Any time the number of ears of corn in the refrigerator is not divisible by two, domestic violence is likely.
By early September, we have sunk to the level of beasts. At feeding time, we grunt at each other as we wallow through the corn husks on the kitchen floor and belly up to the trough.
Then comes the day when one of us drives off to buy corn and returns empty-handed. Jo and I stand in the driveway, hugging and crying. The corn season is over. We drag ourselves into the house, wondering how we will survive the next ten months, ten long, desolate months that loom ahead of us like--
I can't think about this now. Jo drove out to the farm stand forty minutes ago.
Her come back soon. Me melt butter.
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