Beautiful Liar

Beware, I am about to gush about my husband. I know. Gag me.

Most of you guys know that I am ridiculously lucky when it comes to my spouse. And I don't talk about him much, other than in passing, because the thing about having a good husband is....nobody really wants to hear how good your husband is, especially if their husband is a real shitheel.

It's kind of like someone else saying to me, "I try and try and I just can't put on any weight!"

If not an outright invitation to get bitch slapped, at the very least, it smacks of bragging.

I also don't complain about him because most of the women in my life to whom I could complain have very little sympathy when Husband does do something....husband like. Many of them would gladly take him off my hands. Women just like Husband. They always have.

Anyway, last night we had an experience that just typifies why my Husband rocks and I thought I would share it with you all, because I'm generous that way and because nobody in my real life wants to hear about it.

I've had a migraine for several days, and I've been fairly miserable because I have a thing about taking drugs. The thing is, I don't. They freak me out. But last night was the first and only night out of the entire week that we had at home together as a family and I was determined that we would have a nice meal together.

Having lived on hastily gulped sandwiches and/or fast food for far too many days to count, I was looking forward to eating a meal that required silverware.

I seared the roast well on both sides, carmelizing the onions and creating a rich broth. Then I put it to slow cook in the covered electric skillet. I added carrots and potatoes a while later. I made a nice caesar salad. Everything was going well.

But if you suffer from migraines you know that it's sometimes difficult to perform every day tasks because you just aren't thinking straight.

My last step was to make gravy. I'm pretty good at gravy if I do say so myself. But I could not find the new box of cornstarch I had recently purchased. I was annoyed, but it was no big crisis. I can make gravy with flour if need be. I just strain out the lumps and nobody is the wiser.

I did find a small bit of cornstarch in a Pampered Chef shaker/sifter thingy that I use to add flour and/or cornstarch to recipes. It was about half full and I thought that miiiiiiiight be enough. It wasn't. I added it to my drippings only to find that, oddly, it did not thicken the mixture at all.

So I reached for the flour, stirred it into some hot water and then added it to the skillet. I watched with gratification as it thickened into a sumptuous brown gravy. There were a few lumps, but I strained them out and the gravy looked almost good enough to photograph.

I called everyone to the table, brimming with domestic pride at the meal I had prepared for my hungry family. All I needed was a day dress, an apron and a towering bouffant.

Husband fixed a plate for each of the boys, without gravy. Amazingly enough, they have not inherited our love of artery clogging ambrosia.

Then each of us piled our plate high and poured gravy liberally over the meat and potatoes. The smell wafting up from my plate was delicious, migraine notwithstanding. I inhaled appreciatively and husband did the same.

As it happened, I took the first bite.

At first, my mouth was so shocked that it just couldn't process the unexpected taste. Instead of the savory, salty, meaty taste...it encountered a confusing sweetness. It didn't entirely compute.

I stopped mid-chew and sat there for a moment, confounded.

Then I remembered and snorted. I giggled. The giggle gave way to a guffaw. I was well and truly amused but also annoyed with myself.

Husband asked what was so funny. I told him to take a bite and he did so, never expecting the truly startling combination of animal by product and confectioner's sugar.

You see...several weeks ago Husband made brownies for the kids. Apparently, someone, and I'm honestly not sure which one of us it was...used my shaker/sifter thingy to dust the brownies with a uniform layer of powdered sugar. Instead of discarding the powdered sugar or better yet, putting it back in the package from whence it came, someone left it in the shaker/sifter thingy, where, weeks later, it would be found and mistaken, quite reasonably, I might add, for cornstarch.

Seriously. Put powdered sugar and cornstarch side by side and try to tell them apart. Okay, okay. But NOW pretend you have a migraine the size of Detroit and that your vision is peppered with lovely but inconvenient amorphous blobs. Then pretend that you are breathing out of your mouth because when you have a migraine, random smells can render you immediately and violently ill.

See what I mean?

I should have been tipped off by the fact that the "cornstarch" completely dissolved when I added water, instead of making a nice milky looking gravy base as cornstarch does. And I should have been tipped off when it didn't thicken the drippings even a little.

But you know...the migraine...she makes me stupid.

So I suggested that we scrape our plates into the garbage and start over. But Husband wouldn't hear of it. He ate every bite with gusto. He proclaimed loudly and enthusiastically that it was the BEST gravy he ever had, hands down.

"Wolfgang Puck would never do something that innovative with gravy."

And that, ladies. Is why my husband rocks.

Jealous much?