Dumplin'

The Jesus of Cheese is cooking. I hate when he cooks.

He's a very visual guy, and very typical in not ever reading directions--even when I specifically say, "Please read/look at/at least acknowledge this because I need you to."

Here's an example: Years ago, he decided to make me acorn squash because he loves how his mom/grandma made it. I hate squash. I WON'T ever like it. But I said I would try it because he wanted to do it for me.

So he prepared it how he'd seen his mom do it, and then was very confused as to why cutting it in half, scraping out the seeds, putting in butter and brown sugar and then sticking it in the oven for 40 minutes didn't work.

I asked if he'd asked his mom how to do it, and he said no. It never occurred to him that he hadn't seen the whole process--like the steaming it on the stove for almost an hour before it was baked.

He's done this with a lot of foods.

Anyway, ever since I've met him, he's been wanting a re-creation of his grandmother's dumplings. Even his mom has no idea how her mom did them, though she's come up with a recipe that's as close as she thinks she can get. I've made him that recipe. I've made him other recipes I've found. I've made him my mom's recipe. I even tried Bisquick, because we all know that Grandmas sometimes took shortcuts we didn't know about.

NONE of them have been "right." And he keeps describing the SHAPE of the damn dumplings, as if making them the right shape will also make them the right taste.

(He seems to always forget that I cut them how he wants, and they're still not right.)

So right now, he's making dumplings. Except that he didn't give me the ingredients when I went to the store last, even though I asked him what he needed.

He assumed that we had Crisco in the house. I don't cook with Crisco, unless it's a pretty specific recipe. Even then, I buy in small amounts, and even then it sits in the cupboard so long it goes bad.

So he got all pissed off that we don't have Crisco. I made him use unsalted butter instead, which in my opinion could only improve the recipe.

Anyway, he's thrashing around my kitchen (and YES, it IS mine) doing his passive-aggressive cooking.

Why is it passive-aggressive? He looks for things, can't find them, looks even more loudly (yes, you CAN look for something loudly) and after totally frustrating and pissing himself off, he demands to know where [X] is.

I don't think this batch will turn out like he hopes. The lack of Crisco will be blamed.

And once again, it will be my fault.

At least my beer never blames me for anything.