I Fall to Pizzas

There comes with certain expectations rules when one is tagged labeled a FoodGay.  Especially when one is NOT, really (shhhh), but wants to play along.

It's a refreshing label, actually.  Sure, my partner Tom IS completely devoted to his food passion. And worthy of the term label.  Lives the life of his passion for food, does he. Every.Single.Day.

Me?  I like to eat.  I like to eat aforementioned Tom's food. He enflames our home with fragrances and subtle bitter/sweet combos of delight on every single plate he puts before us.  Just the two of us. Yes, the rare party of 8 to 40 guests we entertain.  Yes, the special events he plans, procures, and packages beautifully for the parties he orchestrates outside our home for others:  fetes, church, benefits, Bourbon festivals, Opera House openings:  his work at external venues have long since grown from surprising "How do you DO that?" to cautious, sometimes, now deep into his reputation as, well, expected.  Might I say taken for granted.  He would never say that.

Every time he has the opportunity to cook for others, even just me, is his ultimate joy.

His magic in our unremodeled Victorian kitchen defies the limits of the surroundings.  I am certain our kitchen on Merino Street is the only home within our Gayborhood that has not gone under a $45,921.00 renovation since we've lived here.  There really IS not room for more than one cook in this staid kitchen.   We have wonderful tools, mind you. His partner (okay, me) makes William-Sonoma associates positively giddy when Tom's birthday and Christmas roll around.  

The thing about all this high-end culinary bliss remains a place when he just knows to let me know.  Michael cooks, too.  A damn good old-school meatloaf.  My mother's chili.  He defers homefries to me.  Probably not because, as he says, sweetly, "Yours are better than mine," but because he knows even in a kitchen where there is only one room for "one cook", there are two who live here.  Side by side, if not in the kitchen, at least at the table.

At least one night a week, we both leave the kitchen, get on the phone, and order in pizza.

And part of me knows that somehow, amid the busy-ness of our lives, outside the home, outside the kitchen, but inside our hearts, a tradition remains as dear to each of us in our 26 years together as any of his remarkable well-plated fois gras, or my well-bowled soup beans.

We fall to pizzas.