You say tomato; I say to-maaaaa-to

If you called me last night around 8:00 p.m. I would have answered, even though I am notoriously awful about picking up my cell phone after bedtime. (Yes, I like to think bedtime is 7:30 p.m., especially now that I have fallen hopelessly and madly in love with our new mattress. If J wasn't around, I would marry it. I am deperately looking for a place in the wedding ceremony that will include the mattress. I love it more than the air I breathe.) But, I would have answered the phone because I was sitting in the living room in the dark pouting. I told Krista this morning it was a very intense, full body pout. Like cardio pouting.

Our gentle and saintly groom, however, was scurrying around the kitchen whipping up a feast that included fresh basil and garlic as two hightlights of the pasta sauce he was brewing. Sounds great, right? Why the pout?

Here's why. I can't seem to be in the kitchen cooking a meal with J and not start a fight. Last night we made it through the gauntlet of what to have for dinner (I wanted a big salad with chunks of cheese and chicken and fresh bread; J wanted something more hearty...like pasta with homemade sauce). I surrendered to the menu proposed by my Beloved and then I asked him how he was going to make the pasta sauce. He listed, in this order, fresh basil, garlic and tomatoes. I, having taken a thorough inventory of our refridgerator moments before, asked a really good question: "What tomatoes?" With those perfect doe eyes, J responds that he will be using the canned tomatoes.

I feel a pout coming on.

First of all, I hate canned tomatoes. They are salty and stringy and they taste like awful Lipton's tomato soup. I may have had some residual poutage in store from losing my vision of having a delicious salad. In the middle of our negotiation I had a flashback. I recalled that one time J and I were out with friends talking about pasta sauce and J, in a very dismissive voice, telling our interlocutor that "Christie likes that stuff in a glass jar." Um, "that stuff," is the heavenly nectar also known as Classico pasta sauce. And, it's a mischaracterization to say that I like it. I actually adore it; I love it; I would eat it as soup. Every kind. The spinach florentine? Forget it, I will just take a spoon and go sit down with it. We recently tried a new flavor: carmelized onion and I thought I had died on gone to Italy. Does anyone in the free world really think that someone who uses -- and lauds-- canned tomatoes (generic Jewel brand at that) can really cast so much as a pebble at someone who deigns to enjoy sauce from a glass jar? I mean it's not like I said Ragu. I asked how come he makes fun of me for enjoying the pasta sauce that comes in a glass container when he is using canned tomatoes, but I didn't hear the answer. I had already moved into the pout zone.

I treated myself to turning on the TV because and I was mad and irrational enough to know that nothing on TV would distract me from the pout. I almost softened up when I saw Edward Kennedy's speech at the Democratic National Convention--he looked pretty good and it seems like his congnition is fairing well despite his brain tumor. I have a friend whose father had the same kind of tumor, and it swiftly took his speech and soon after, his life. I got a little distracted by Caroline Kennedy who looks really anorexic to me, but maybe someone tried to serve her one too many canned tomatoes. (I know, enough about the tomatoes-- there are starving children that Madonna and the Jolie-Pitts haven't adopted yet and LOTS of people would love to have a fiance (or anyone) make them dinner).

J and I are well versed in the power struggles of the kitchen. He sees himself as sharing his efficent systems and time-tested methods with me, but when he's sharing I feel defensive and ashamed and unable to hear what he's offering me as something other than criticism or pedantic "how to's". I can almost believe he's offering to share something with me-- nothing excites J more than working out a system or finding the best way to execute a task. But when he shows me how to chop the garlic or how best to wash the frying pan I can't seem to keep from experiencing him as a little too Henry Higgins for my taste.

It's been a while since we've had a Higgins-Doolittle battle in the kitchen. We ended up talking it out after ingesting a not-insigificant amount of (canned tomato) pasta sauce on bowtie pasta. I told him I thought he was bossy, and he agreed, which took some of the thrill out of asserting that he was bossy.

Trish reminded me that first year of marriage is really hard. We aren't married yet, but we are living together (Sorry, Mom, but I gotta make it explicit), and it's hard. I have been eating my Classico for years. I have been doing my own thing for over 3 decades. So has J. Neither of us have ever done this before-- "this" meaning live with a partner, plan a wedding, negotiate every single aspect of life. I am not sure that either one of us has a model for what we are trying to do: be partners in every single realm of our lives. God, can you imagine the post if J expected me to whip up dinner every night? We are committed to having joint responsibilities and sharing as much as possible, as opposed to dividing up chores and staying out of each other's way. I think we are about to commit to stay in each other's way for the rest of our lives-- which I think I can do as long as I can have as many pout breaks as I need along the way.

Seriously, though, canned tomatoes?