Humor: A sauce of marital discontent

A sauce of marital discontent

Some people don't believe in God. Others don't believe in George W. Bush or John W. Howard. My wife Katherine doesn't believe in those pasta sauces that come in jars.

You might know the ones - just add meat and pasta, sprinkle with parmesan cheese you can buy already grated, and, Il vostro zio del Bob*, dinner is served.

Pre-prepared pasta sauces were a staple in my kitchen cupboard before I was married.
They hardly helped me carve a reputation as a culinary genius.
Neither did the TV dinners I kept in the freezer, nor even the instant noodles and microwave popcorn I had stashed away.

But nobody could deny they were quick and convenient.

"That's not the point," Katherine said on the eve of our marriage when we were working through the finer points of the do's and don'ts of our future life together. "I'm not having anything to do with pre-prepared pasta sauces."

"Why not?" I cried. "They taste ... er, um ... eccellente, fantastique, just like mamma used to make. Haven't you seen the advertisements on TV?"

"No, I haven't" said Katherine. "AND I DON'T CARE. If you want to marry me you have to agree to abstaining from pre-prepared pasta sauces, okay? Not in my kitchen anyway."

I was shattered.

Very few houses come with His and Hers kitchens, which seemed to further limit my options.

"But I don't understand what's wrong with pre-prepared pasta sauces," I protested.

"They're not natural," Katherine said. "When I cook, I like to use fresh ingredients."

This is true, but only up to a point.
When I have baked cakes (rarely, I admit), I have always used commercial cake mixes.
But when Katherine bakes cakes (frequently), she uses eggs, flour and sugar and turns her nose up at people who use commercial cake mixes.
If I wanted to get really picky, I would point out that cake purists keep hens to lay eggs and grind their own wheat and sugar cane.

Of course, I have never actually presented that line of thought - least of all on the eve of our marriage, an institution which, after all, requires compromise and sometimes conversion.

It is not as if I have had to renounce a throne because I was marrying out of the church.

All I had to do was learn to make pasta sauce from the ground up.
And, apart from the time I accidentally used the pet mince from the fridge (and it tasted delicious until we found out), I have become pretty darn good at it too.
If you saw me grinding up garlic, peeling tomatoes or dicing onions, you could be forgiven for assuming I had been doing it all my life.
Eccellente, fantastique, grande.
Just call me King John of the kitchen.

Alas, unfortunately, all is not well in my culinary kingdom at the moment.
Oh no.
Some friends of ours, who are moving to the United States, have given us a number of items they cannot fit in their suitcases.
I had no idea of what they had given us until yesterday when I spied a once-familiar food item in our pantry: a jar of pre-prepared onion, garlic and tomato pasta sauce.

I have not asked Katherine about it.
I dare not.
It has the potential to shift the rock our marriage is built upon.

As I said, some people don't believe in God.
Some don't believe in George W. Bush or John W. Howard.
Katherine did not believe in pre-prepared pasta sauces before marriage and I thought she still felt the same way.

* English translation: "Bob's your uncle"

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it