The Savory Quinoa Incident

Let me start by saying I love my husband very much. Very much. I don’t emphasize how crazy I am about him a lot of the time because of that default way of being, that Eastern European and/or Mediterranean evil eye thing, makes me think better not get too happy about anything too publicly or it will tempt the Fates and ruin everything, plus the Billy Holiday Don’t-Advertise-Your-Man rule. So I’ll just say that I am crazy about him, even after what happened yesterday with the quinoa. What happened yesterday was I texted very clearly that I wanted him to put the quinoa on for dinner before Ax and I came home from the Sea Center, so that when we got home from the Sea Center dinner would be almost ready. I went back and checked my texts and you can see for yourself that I was very clear in my request:

“Phone dying still at pier

Quinoa making?

Enough for beach tomo?”

And he texted back that he would start making dinner right away. What it said was: “It’s easy to make enough for the beach.”

But what happened was, when Ax and I got home, there was no quinoa on the stove, there was no indication of any dinner prep at all. Mike was in his lair, working or doing whatever he does in there, and he came out when he heard us come in.

“Hi guys! It’s good to see you! Let’s get in the pool!” He said.

“Yeaaaa!” said Ax.

And I’m thinking, “What the fuck? It’s almost dinnertime, there’s no dinner, and they’re going to swim? Fuck!”

But, because of couples therapy, what I said was, “Umm, what about the quinoa? It’s kinda close to dinnertime,” Presenting a challenge for us to work together, as a team, to address, not blaming, not shaming.

“You need me to make quinoa now?” Mike said. Mike is the quinoa-maker in the family.

“Swim-ming! Swim-ming! Swim-ming!” Ax said, jumping around.

“Well, yeah, it would be nice,” I say.

“Me Want Swimming!” Ax says.

So Mike stands there, deer in headlights style, and starts making quinoa under duress. We tell Ax to use his patience and he does and starts playing with something else but clearly there is tension in the house.

From the kitchen, Mike calls to me, “So did you expect me to make quinoa during my work day?”

“Well, I thought it was like rice where you just put it on to boil and it takes an hour or something to cook.”

“It’s not like rice. You don’t just leave it.”

“Oh.”

And then the quinoa is made and the boys run off into the pool but the whole having dinner part is missed and I feel like an a-hole for trying to enforce dinnertime and for forcing Mike to cook quinoa that now no one is eating.

And then somehow all of a sudden it’s 8pm and I’m enforcing bedtime and I’m grateful that my husband makes really tasty quinoa and likes to play with our child for hours and hours in the pool and yet. And yet. It’s a good thing we are crazy about each other. I’m gonna focus on that.

Mike’s Savory Quinoa:

Quinoa – cooked (approx. 20 mins)

Spinach – chopped and sautéed

Sweet onion – raw, sliced thin

Bragg’s Liquid Aminos

Olive Oil

Lemon Juice

Combine and enjoy.