Cooking

In several posts during the last year I wrote that the food we had in Iraq was great. Aside from really good bread we were very well fed. The amazing variety of fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal meant we actually were well fed in the nutritional sense. When I got to America I asked my kids to bring bakery bread to me at Fort Dix. Since I have been home, I have had good bread pretty much every day.

But it turns out I also missed cooking. In the last week I made dinner several times. When I make dinner it is more extravagant than my very frugal wife makes, but she doesn't mind because I do the work and cooking expensive food at home is still much less expensive than eating in a not-so-great restaurant.

One night this week I made a pork roast, mashed potatoes, and steamed cabbage. I make mashed potatoes with butter, whole milk and an old-fashioned potato masher--not exactly health food, but really good if you like potatoes. We also had celery with and without peanut butter, provolone cheese, jarlsburg cheese, and bread from a local bakery named "A Loaf of Bread." And very much unlike Tallil, my wife and I had wine with dinner that I got as a coming home present the week before. Just one glass for me--I had a two drink limit before deployment and now can get a small buzz from one glass of table wine. Two days later, dinner was the leftover pork, potatoes and cabbage along brie cheese and French bread and the rest of the bottle of wine.

Tonight we had apples, cheese, purple cabbage, Cappicola ham, fruit and nut bread from Philadelphia, and a really good rose wine that was also a welcome home gift. It really is fun to cut everything up and make the food look good on the serving plates--that's something you can't get in a buffet line.