Frisbees. I mean, Frisbees!
When I did open the kitchen cupboards I found row upon row of canned ravioli. Nothing else, just ravioli. This was served on frisbees, as there were no plates. He was 28 at the time.
This should have been my first clue.
Back in the UK we set up our flat as a married couple. He was trying to figure out a whole new country so I did most of the cooking and he would handle the really simple stuff, like sliding a pre-made pizza into the oven, or microwaving ready meals.
Eventually I was fed up of cooking, so I started asking him to help out. One day I asked him to cook some potatoes. I went upstairs to put some laundry away and when I came back he was prodding a pan in a fearful manner, so I lent him my seasoned eye.
He had peeled some potatoes, cut them up and arranged them in the bottom of a saucepan and then put them on the heat.
No water. No oil. No stock. Let’s face it, no liquid at all.
They sat there, melding to the bottom of the pan, probably feeling as perplexed as my husband looked. I marvelled at his lack of knowledge - I think I even laughed.
That was my second clue. I heeded it not, and instead thought it was a delightful oddity that he had brought to the marriage to amuse me. We were still in our honeymoon period.
Several years on and I found it less delightful. If there was a way to cook something wrongly, he would find it. If he could make it dangerous as well, then he would.
Anne of Green Gables said that one day she would have made every mistake there was and would be done. My hubby didn’t seem to see it that way. He was unable to learn anything from his many mistakes.
Instead of potatoes, he would put hot dogs and other foodstuffs in dry pans burning food and pans in the process. He was unable to use any common sense at all. Our oven was slow to heat up, so we had to give another ten minutes to make sure things were cooked through.
He would slavishly follow the recipe to the second and serve the meal without tasting it or checking the meat was actually cooked.
I quickly learnt that if I was to eat I had to cook.
When we divorced, it wasn’t because of his cooking, though it was there in the mix. I’ve been told that the reason you break up with someone is something you knew about from almost your first meeting. I tend towards believing this. There were several other things