Anyone who has been married for any length of time can relate to Date Night, that precious allotment of time for nurturing and connecting with your spouse.
They can also relate to how easily Date Night gets postponed when children are thrown into the mix and life hands out coughs, colds, and fevers with ironically bad timing and a seemingly evil sense of humour.
Over the years, my husband and I have missed more than our share of Date Nights. We now find ourselves a whole lot less choosy about exactly how we spend our time together, content with simply being able to share each other’s company, and being able to complete a sentence without an interruption from our walking and talking gene pool.
We occasionally go for a drink together at one of our local watering holes. Sometimes we even dine out and revel in the luxury of someone else doing the cooking.
However, when we really want to spice things up, we do Date Nights at the grocery store, combining practicality with indulgence while we shop for necessities and browse the food aisles in search of new and tantalizing delicacies.
Fellow foodies can relate to a luxurious stroll through the grocery store, taking the time to check out new items, the International and Organic sections, and lovingly caress the produce, ever mindful of the great promise of the latent masterpieces locked. As I linger over preserved lemons or local lamb, I am mentally going over the possibilities, already smelling and tasting the potential creations that await me.
I love that a simple ingredient reminds me of some long forgotten recipe, some delicious dish that obviously needs to be recreated in the very near future, enticing me back into the kitchen where my shiny pots and pans await. The possibilities are staggeringly endless and wonderfully intoxicating.
As we wander the aisles, enjoying the rapture of our culinary fore play, we savour our relationship and are grateful for this journey together. No doubt, we have shared many past lives, for our connection was instant. (We often joke that we only had half a date before we knew we were destined to be together). I don't know if my obsession and love affair with food was part of one of those past lives, but I am certainly grateful that it permeates this life.
Note: Susanne Merritt will be sharing her unique perspective on food, cooking, recipes, and life in the coming months.
