Chickpeas & Lime Zest

Women change. Evolve. “Grow.” Guys don’t. We’re like dogs. We just age. Over the years we like the same food. The same music. The same underwear. The same snacks and treats. A favorite old coat with tattered cuffs. And we have at least one pair of jeans that should have been thrown out when the first Bush left office.

I loved brownies as a kid. I still love brownies (without nuts). For some reason my evolver finds it necessary to deviate from the tried-and-true staples of man-life, mostly with food.

“I MADE YOU BROWNIES!” She beamed…

“THANKS! MY FAVORITE!” I said, giving Bek a quick hug and immediately started rummaging for a hamburger flipper to dig out a massive sample.

“Are they good? Do you like them? It’s a new recipe I found on Facebook!” she said excitedly.

“Bek, what’s in here?” I asked with a surprised muffled mouthful of what I thought was a brownie.

“Nothing. It’s the same old Betty Crocker mix. I just added lime zest and raisins. You love raisins,” she said, reminding me of my passion for raisins since the creepy crawly raisin incident of 2017, where I had unknowingly eaten a few hundred live grubs that had infested a new unopened bag of Sun-Maid “Natural” raisins.

I couldn’t do it. The thought of the raisins and the odd gelatinous bits of tart lime brought back the haunting memory of seeing a dozen little white worms crawling in my fifth full handful of juicy raisins.

[Now, I’ll admit, when I’m home my manners often degrade to a period of human existence sometime between cave-dweller and Viking.]

I violently pulled open kitchen trash cupboard and spit out the black mass.

“YOU’RE DISGUSTING!” Bekki growled, as I rinsed my mouth under the kitchen faucet. “That was kinda dramatic! You don’t like anything I make!”

“COME ON BEK!” I pleaded, “They’re freakin’ brownies! You don’t need to dress ‘em up! The recipe right outta the box works by itself! It’s Betty’s proven formula…older than me!”

But it’s not just brownies. My evolver has been on a kick for the past several months, having boxed meals delivered. It’s the big-girl version of an Easy Bake Oven; everything you need in one package… except Tums and toilet paper. Every ingredient is meticulously micro-portioned, making the lost art of measuring irrelevant. Tiny little jars and packets contain everything needed, right down to small vials of brown mystery liquid and of course at least one lime.

Beautiful graphical recipe cards accompany every package to let the evolver know how each project should look if things go well. But like Subway’s chicken sandwich commercials, the Easy Bake box meals never look quite like the enhanced photos. They’re similar (in shape) just a bit more “gray.”

Some of the boxed experiments are ok. The “traditional spaghetti” with brown rice couscous, chickpeas, and pulverized turkey… or tuna… (or something light colored) and of course lime zest, was ok. Hardly “traditional.” Not spectacular. More like the college version of snowstorm spaghetti, where you’re too lazy and cold to go outside and instead boil the little noodles from Kraft mac & cheese and throw in ketchup and a chopped up Slim Jim.

And why chickpeas? How are they recipe-worthy? All of the recipes have chickpeas and lime zest. I don’t even know what a chickpea is! It’s like some mad scientist crossed a lima bean with a macadamia nut in a misguided effort to save the starving  Third World.  And sure enough, there’s probably some boxed meal “specialist” designing recipes, trying them out on her family, emphatically telling them how they “love chickpeas!”

I can only guess where the recipes come from. After several months of Bek experimenting with different boxed food companies, I’m thinkin’ that most come from Asian prisons or angry vegans. Just about everything is served in a bowl… suspended in some kind of juice. And seldom is there any ingredient that hints of a carb. It’s all mostly ground grayness, kale, chickpeas, ginger or chili powder, and shards of unidentifiable white gelatinous tidbits.

Bekki has stopped pouting when I slap together a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for “dessert” on box dinner nights.

I appreciate that Bek cooks a couple of times a week. I cook the other days. She says my food is “flavorless.” Probably because her tastebuds have been numbed by chickpeas and lime zest! She ignores what I make, sampling a baked potato or eating a dry tortilla in protest.

I’ve been cooking for myself, Gabby and Joe forever and have my standard recipes DOWN! I make pot roast with carrots and potatoes, chicken and dumplings, lasagna (with sauce from scratch), Taco Bravos (that could win an award), and a bunch of other standard “traditional” stuff… none of which comes in a box.

My evolver picks at my meals because they’re “boring.” But again, I’m a guy. I don’t need food to be adventurous… just satisfying. I have all the adventure I need at work. And I like the same music, underwear, and brownies (without nuts) that I always have. Guess that makes me simple and unevolved.

I’ll keep eating the Easy Bake boxed meals because Bek enjoys making them. And I really do appreciate that she cares enough to cook for me, even if the recipes are kinda grey and…well… weird by man standards.

But when I’m making a shopping list and heading to the store and she yells, “DON’T BUY ANYMORE PEANUT BUTTER, WE HAVE THREE JARS!” I’ll just smile and pretend to scratch it off my list as I circle “SKIPPY” hard enough to rip the paper.