What's in a name?

STORYTIME!

Every year on new years day, my family gets together for a dinner at a fancy restaurant. Its a tradition I love because it means I always share the first big meal of the year with my parents, brothers, and in recent years, my husband and sisters in law. Another tradition I love in my family is that once you've done something embarrassing, we will remember always. Even if you were seven years old and accidentally blurted out what you were getting your brother for christmas, or if you thought the bread on the counter was regular bread and not spiced stuffing bread.

This is the story of how my husband earned his legacy in my family.

We were at said New Years Day dinner, and everyone was enjoying the meal and conversation. I don't remember who I was talking to, or what about, but I do remember hearing my husband of a scant two months say my name and I turned to listen. He was talking to my mother about my cooking, and he brought up stir fry's and how I seem to make them a lot and he wasn't a big fan of them. My mom, who at this point was well acquainted with my husbands habit of digging his own grave and not even knowing it, tried to help him out. She told him that after a long day at work, stir fry is a great dinner because it usually only takes one pan, you can use whatever you have in the fridge and it doesn't take long to make.

At this point, everyone else at the table is listening in, and so they all heard when my husband said "Well its not like her stir fry's are culinary masterpieces."

To my husbands credit, I don't think he realized that my entire family was listening, or even that I was listening. I think I piped up at this point and told him that he was welcome to cook dinner whenever he wanted. Perhaps finally sensing danger, he changed the subject. And perhaps it would have ended there, a casual comment in a conversation forgotten quickly. If only I hadn't done what I did next...

On January 2nd, I made a stir fry for dinner. And then another one on the 3rd. And on the 4th.

On the 5th my husband commented that I had been making a lot of stir fry lately. I looked him in the eye and said "I sure have."

On the 14th my husband asked, "Is this about what I said on New Years?" I continue to eat my stir fry.

In what is possibly the most passive aggressive move in my life, I made stir fry every night, right up to January 31st. And it wasn't the same stir fry, I exhausted pinterest looking up new recipes and I still use some of them to this day!

And now, if anyone in my family is making stir fry, they call it a 'Culinary Masterpiece' and my husband shakes his head and remarks on how no one in our family ever lets anything go.

And that is the story behind the name of this blog!