Cooking and Romance

[Claire]

College Cooks question lead me to one of my own. What was the first meal you cooked for your romantic partner and what was the first one s/he did for you? Circumstances, location, setting? What made it particularly special, what was humorous, a success, or a failure? Share!

 

[Claire]

I'll go first. The first meal I made for my now-husband was a duck marinaded in red wine, preceded by a sort of shrimp cocktail presented in an avocado half. I don't remember side dishes or desert (as a matter of fact, probably didn't do desert. Not a sweets lover, so have a tendency to forget some don't feel it is a decent meal if it isn't followed by sweets. Perhaps that's why the meal worked, husband is the same.) The humorous part is that I'd never fixed duck before, period. When I pulled the duck out of the marinade, it was a bizarre purple color and I broke into tears. The meal was delish. I was very broke in those days, and the expense of the shrimp and an avocado just about killed me.


Hubby made beef stroganof to woo me. But what really won me was his table setting. Real silver, china and crystal, beautiful table linens. I knew he was a sensuous man who had decent manners and was raised by caring people (believe me, I'd known a lot of men for whom eating was a question of bellying up to a feeding trough). The stroganof was good, but that table won me over. The silver and china are now ours, the crystal has gone the way of many PCS moves and careless washings (a couple of sets have come and gone), but he still sets the table when we have a small dinner party, and still wins my heart with it every time.

 

[luvs]

the first romantic meal my fiance and i shared at home was one we cooked together. we made fiilet mignon. i forget what else we made. i laugh about this now, but it wasn't funny then; he started a rather small fire; he was like, 'BABE! the pan's on fire!!!!!!!!' while i was in the bathroom washing my hands. i ran into the kitchen and grabbed the box of baking soda out of the cupboard and doused the flames with it. we tried to do our filets in butter like Ruth's Chris.
i learned something that day:you should NOT put butter into the broiler. OOPS!
we did cook once before that, but i'm not so very sure i was dating him yet; we made kebabs and marinated and broiled them. but other people were there. it wasn't a romantic dinner at all.
know what? i WAS dating him then. but it was just such a casual dinner with other people, so it didn't really count.

 

[buckytom]

this one's easy. it was my first serious (adult-aged) girlfriend, when i was about 19.

she was a nice italian-american girl, i've spoken before of her grandparents from sicily and calabria, so we both loved southern italian food, especially seafood.
i forget the occasion, but i had my parents house to myself, so i decided to make her a romantic dinner at home. i tried to make shrimp and lump crabmeat in marnara sauce over angel hair.
thank goodness for the coupla bottles of cheap straw bottle chianti, because the pasta was overcooked and falling apart, the shrimp came out like hardened rubber, and the crab just disintegrated into the sauce. it was a disaster as far as the food went; we just laughed about it.
the only good thing was the sauce, one of my first from scratch. we ended up feeding each other just the sauce, scooped up on bits of buttered bread...

 

[pdswife]

Can you believe that I don't remember?
I asked Paul and he said he thinks I opened a can of "something and it wasn't to remarkable". lol...

He told his mom before we were married that he would have to do all the cooking.
I've always done all the cooking and for the first few years I heard "why don't you just cook it like my mom does??" Now, he thinks (and his mother does too) that I'm a much better cook than his mom!
I do remember the first time he kissed me though and it was remarkable.!!

 

[pdswife]

I"m bumping this back up to the top cuz, I really like reading about romance.

 

[Constance]

My husband and I met when we were both married to other people, and for 10 years, we were friends only. We saw each other often, and many times ended up in the kitchen, cooking for the crowd.
Eventually, both our marriages came to unhappy endings, and as friends, we naturally gravitated toward each other.
We began seeing each other, going out to eat at several nice restaurants. Then one night he invited me over for steak and salad at his place.
He didn't have a kitchen table, but did have a wonderful coffee table. In his youth, he had worked for a furniture store, and found an old round oak table in the attic that had layers and layers of paint on it. He cut it down to coffee table height, stripped off all the old paint, and re-finished it until it was as smooth as glass.
He'd been to Walmart and bought us a couple of big cushions to sit on and some candles. We sat there and ate his salad and a tender juicy steak from the grill.
From then on, he was the only man for me.

Aint love grand?

 

[middie]

i THINK it was honey-dijon chicken... though i don't remember for sure.
he made burgers and fries.

 

[Andy M.]

Aint love grand?

Love is grand.

Divorce is $20 Grand

 

[college_cook]

The first ever thing I cooked for her was chocolate chip pancakes. My step-mom and was going to her Tennis finals one saturday morning, and my dad decided to go with for support. They woke me up to keep an eye on the dogs, and it was about 6AM. After an hour or two of playin video games, I got really bored, and thought I'd make breakfast and call her over. So I ran to the local coffee house, and picked up a 'White Lightning", basically a white choc. mocha, which is her fav. and sped home, and whipped up some pancakes and celled her around 9:30 AM. It was nice eating out on the backyard porch with a gentle summer morning breeze blowing.

The first intentionally romantic meal was shrimp alfredo. Little did I know, shrimp was one of her favorite foods ever, and alfredo her fav. pasta sauce (I didn't make it, I bought the DiGiorno pre-made, which is OK). But I was a big hit. I think it was for our first Valentine's day.

I think the first time she cooked was when we got to college, and she made terriyaki chicken, to surprise me after midterms. Despite her extreme lack of experience, it turned out AWESOME.

 

[jkath]

Love is grand.

Divorce is $20 Grand

And Constance, your story is absolutely wonderful!
Some people are just meant to be together, no matter what the circumstances.

 

[mrsdove]

I have no idea what I made but hubby made me an awesome dinner of fetuccini alfredo and asparagus with hollindaise sauce.

It was Valentine's Day and he asked his mom where he should take me (we had just been dating for almost a month) and she suggested that he cook for me. That was what he made and topped it off with a heartshaped box of Dove chocolate truffles. I remember eating his meal and thinking that I had to get this guy to marry me!

He also got off easy for every other Valentine's Day. I only want the exact meal he cooked me that night with my chocolates. He does it perfect every year!

 

[jkath]

I knew a woman who made a heart-shaped meatloaf every year for valentines day.

 

[kadesma]

way back when, we really didn't cook for each other, DH would sometimes join my momn, dad, and me for dinner which mom usually fixed and I helped, and it took quite awhile before he took me home to MOM One meal there and I was scared to death..Italian family!!!! His mom did fried chicken, which several years later she asked me how to make hers taste like mine !!! home made ravioli and sauce, stuffed onions, rice torta, tossed salad, garbonzo beans with olive oil, parsley and garlic, asparagus and before all this she had set out foccacia, copa, proscuitto, and jack cheese..Need I say more??? I was so intimidated I could have cried! It all boiled down to our first meal after the honeymoon...Ham, brown sugar glaze with pinapple on it, scalloped potatoes, fruit salad and rolls...NOTICE how far away from Italian I got It didn't take me long to decide, ok, get off you hiney and get cooking and I did just that...After about 6 months I didn't hear, but my mom cooks it like this, or my mom always...NOPE I finally heard, GEEZ, your a much better cook than my mom...heeeehhheeehhh....I'm still at it too...
kadesma who now hears only the chewing and the laughter and some smiles from DH and all four kids and grandkids

 

[kitchenelf]

Love is grand.

Divorce is $20 Grand

You lucky duck - mine was $70 Grand (if any of you wonder why I hiss and spit when I talk about my ex now you know)

 

[Andy M.]

You lucky duck - mine was $70 Grand (if any of you wonder why I hiss and spit when I talk about my ex now you know)

Elf:

That's just a one-liner. No relation to the truth.

If I told you how much my divorce really cost me, you'd choke! It was WAY more than $20K. ...and WAY more than $70K too.

 

[kadesma]

Andy and Elf, as much as that hurt, boy wasn't it worth it to be rid of the scurvey pirates ?

kadesma

 

[comissaryqueen]

David made me the worst scrambled eggs I've ever eaten. They were soo dry and crusty. When he asked how I liked them I told him they were the best I ever had. I made him manicotti. He said it was the best he ever had......I wonder?!