I'm in Love with a Chef

My husband is an awesome chef. Not a cook. A chef. He performs miracles in our kitchen on a daily basis. I haven't cooked in years. Like twenty. It's not that I can't cook, I just don't enjoy it. I'll chop up a garden salad, fruit salad, even a seafood salad (if hubby makes the noodles for me). But I don't do well with heat. Something about the fear of being burned by an oven grate, splashed by grease, or falling into the open flame of a gas grill leaves me firmly on Instant Pudding ground. I'm happiest there, and my husband agrees less food is wasted, less anxiety is had by all. 

So, it was no real surprise when my husband dipped a spoon into a pot of warm barbeque sauce and I immediately began salivating like Pavlov's dog. He lifted the coated spoon gently and caressingly to my lips. (If this sounds like the beginning of a graphic love novel, well, yeah, my husband's homemade barbeque sauce has that affect on a lot of people. I'll try to keep this latest experience "G-rated.") 

Anyway, I took the spoon into my mouth, and almost instantly, my right eye involuntarily closed. Just like that. Shut. This man's barbeque sauce was so good, it rendered me temporarily blind in one eye. Other senses were awakened:  my sinuses cleared, my tongue did the Wobble (the parental advisory version), and I think a few toes may have curled. This was all before the swallow. How can this man invoke this reaction with ketchup base? 

I can't wait until today when about 20-30 of our closest friends and family will celebrate Independence Day with us. They'll eagerly pile pulled pork onto buns without the slightest clue as to the Old School songs playing while the sauce simmered to perfection. They won't realize every deviled egg was carefully scrutinized while peeling back the shell. I've been witnessing this celebratory feasting for almost 23 years, but when I step back and observe the effects of that first bite on one of our guests, when somebody else's right eye involuntarily closes, I'll give that knowing look. Yeah, girl. Yes, fellas. I'm with the chef. Take a plate home. Take two. But the chef? He stays with me.