With Farmer H now fully retired, my household duties have increased. Two CANNOT live as lazily as one.
Since he's home more, Farmer H makes more trips in and out of the house, tracking mud in his clodhopper work boots. You don't think he takes his shoes off or wipes his feet every time he rushes in to poop (we won't even talk about the condition of the toilet seat) or have lunch or grab a set of keys to one of his thousand vehicles, do you? That's a rhetorical question.
I have told Farmer H that he's on his own for lunch. He never eats at the same time twice. Some days he comes in around 10:15 for lunch, others it's 2:30. I am NOT on call for his meal preparation. He gets supper, whether he deserves it or not, and he's left to his own devices for breakfast and lunch.
It's like pulling teeth to find out what Farmer H wants to eat. Yet if I make something that I have handy, or something that I like, it sometimes gets a lukewarm reception. I know it can't be my cooking skills!
Even though I'm pretty sure The Devil would do business with Farmer H, I ask him what foods he wants on hand for his lunches and breakfasts. Breakfast is the easy part, because he likes the frozen breakfast croissants. Not exactly healthy, but healthier than Casey's donuts. For lunches, Farmer H said he'd make sandwiches, and listed off items he'd like. Bologna, pepper jack cheese, Wonder Bread, potted meat, pickle slices, spicy mustard, hot dogs, buns, Ruffles potato chips. Enough to keep him going. Simple enough to make.
Here's the deal. Farmer H eats his suppers for lunch! Then he expects me to come up with something else for supper! I cry shenanigans! I'm not some homesteady wife like Sarah Plain and Tall. I am allowed to live my life doing other things besides serving him! It's easiest for me to prepare the evening meal mid-morning, while I'm waiting for my thyroid med to kick in, and before I go to town. Otherwise, after my errands, I only have an hour or so to do what I want to do, then I have to go prepare supper, and that messes up the time of my walk.
I figured Farmer H could feed himself breakfast and lunch. He's outside working on his projects until dark. I do my walk at dusk. Then I warm up the supper.
But NO! Like the soup I made last week. I'd let it cool, and had just put the whole pot in FRIG II before I left for town. When I returned, Farmer H was roaming around, and told me he had eaten soup FOR LUNCH!
"It was just right. Still warm. I didn't even have to put it in the microwave."
Never mind that we were having soup for supper, with Oberle cheese and garlic toast. Oh, he still had that for supper. And said it was good. But then the next night, he kind of acted all nose-turned-uppy at the announcement that we were having soup for supper. Seriously. I don't make a pot of soup for just one meal. It's not my fault he'd already made two meals out of it.
I should have told him we were having potted meat sandwiches for supper.
Oh, the fun never ends, does it?
ReplyDeleteI guess you need to start playing hide and seek. You make dinner, hide it, and see how long it takes for him to find it.
Sioux,
ReplyDeleteThe fun shows no signs of ending. He wouldn't even look for it. Farmer H would drive to town to get something to eat, then I'd have hidden dinner mutating somewhere I'd forgotten.
I have no solution whatsoever to this problem apart from locking away all prepared supper foods. Does he own a set of lock picks?
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly is potted meat? It sounds English, I remember reading about it in stories of children at British Boarding Schools when I was young.
Maybe you should have some store bought MRE's in your cupboard for him. Three or four might fill him up (until the next meal)!!
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteHere's a picture. I hope it's worth a thousand words!
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8017/7353370618_6b70284909.jpg
The ingredients list is: Beef Tripe, Mechanically Separated Chicken, Beef Hearts, Partially Defatted Cooked Beef Fatty Tissue, Meat Broth, Vinegar, Salt, Flavoring, Sugar, Sodium Nitrite.
Bon apetit!
***
fishducky,
Maybe The Veteran can get me a discount!
I red the ingredients, I won't bother with the picture as I'm eating right now.
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteHeh, heh! I eat it, though. Not on a regular basis. But as a quick lunch, it's not bad on a sandwich.