THE KITCHEN POLICE

Recently on the news there was a mention of chicken and bacteria, and that you should cook it at 165 degrees.

TLW (The Little Woman) has been for the 42 years I know her a stickler for cooked meat. Like her father she likes her meat well done. If you place a plate of pork or chicken in front of her, she will examine it like Sherlock Holms or a member of one of those police forensic squad members, looking for clues, she looks for well done. SHE will never eat sushi.

Her dad: liked his meat well done and I mean well done. I used to see him eat a steak and it wasn’t well done so much as finished for sure. All it needed was shoelaces and a good shine.

I on the other hand like my meat cooked medium rare. Even pork should not be so well cooked that it loses its natural juices. Pork can be pink inside unlike chicken, which should be cooked through so that it is safe, but still moist and tasty. But a little pink inside is not going to hurt you in pork dishes.

I’ll put a pork chop in front of TLW and dig into mine, look up and watch her begin the examination. Head down, she slices through the chop, stopping half way through to hold it apart with her knife and fork, as she takes a look. You’d think I was trying to poison her.

“I’m putting mine in the micro-wave for another minute.” This is her statement to verify the chop does not meet her meat standards for cooked. This makes me crazy and now I wonder if I should do the same thing. Her: ‘How could you try to kill me this way’ look is penetrating and rather effective, as I want to say something, but don’t. (I’m really a great husband!) There is a triumph in her look, and bounciness in her step from the microwave to her chair and dryness in her meat.

On Wednesday nights, we eat later than usual, since she teaches little heathens about Jesus and doesn’t get home until 7:15 pm. This is when I cook pork chops, figuring she is hungry now for sure and won’t mess around and literally bust my chops. This is to no avail, since she will go the extra minute.

Debatable pork chops have been part of our married life since day 17, the first Wednesday we spent at home as a married couple. If she made pork chops that Wednesday, you could bet the farm (pig farm) that the train I was coming home on would be late, and I would have dried out pork chops, but a happy wife. I just occurred to me that she was blaming the trains and getting away with this all these years I took the train!

And so boys and girls, that is the way it was and still is.