Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

My honey's in the kitchen on the verge of a panic attack because guess who's coming to dinner...my mother.  In a further attempt to charm and win her over, my honey came up with a great idea this week.  He invited Mom over for a homemade meal of his world-famous tacos and Spanish rice.  He hoped a wonderful meal and good company would help to ease her disapproval of our living situation.

He planned everything down to the last detail.  He planned a full menu, made a comprehensive grocery list, went shopping well in advance, and had a schedule going in his head for when he needed to start cooking each appetizer and entree.  He was fully confident in his menu and ready for this meal.  What he wasn't ready for was the amount of anxiety he would experience because he was in charge of making a meal for my mother.

As you may have read earlier this month, I experienced alot of anxiety and stress over his parents' coming over on Mother's Day.  Some of my nuttiness was because of the total spring cleaning that needed to occur before their arrival, but a lot of it was because I know his mom is an amazing cook.  My honey is always talking about the great meals his mom makes and what a good cook she is.  I wanted the food to live up to her high standards.  My mom, on the other hand, never cooked when I was growing up.  My dad got home first, so he always started dinner.  I didn't know my mother could cook until I was well into my teens.  Plus, my mom has been to my house loads of times, when it was both clean and dirty.  No need for stress when cooking for a returning visitor, right? Wrong!





My honey was stressing out about this dinner from the second he got home.  Traffic had been especially bad that day and he was about thirty minutes late getting home from work.  This meant that immediately he was behind schedule.  Add to that the fact that he realized after getting into the kitchen that he had forgotten to leave the steak out to thaw and we had a recipe for a frazzled chef.  My honey was panicking as he started mentally reorganizing his menu.  "We have pre-cooked chicken strips in the fridge for your salads, right?  I can use those to make tacos, can't I?" my honey was asking.  I assured him that we did have chicken and he could use it.



Since it had been a hot day, I sent him upstairs to change out of his work clothes while I put the steak into the microwave to thaw.  By the time he came back down, the steak was thawed and I'd sliced up the onions for him.  Crisis #1 averted.  He decided he would do both chicken and steak tacos, anyway.  Next, he began to worry about what time my mother would arrive.  We hadn't set a firm time for dinner.  We usually go over to her house for dinner at about six, but Mom has been known to show up at my house early.  He asked me to call her and confirm her arrival time.  As he began  sauteeing onions and mushrooms, I put in the call to Mom.

"Everything okay, honey?" I asked
"No, I put too much water in with the rice!" he replied.

Mom was willing to show up whenever we were ready, but had been planning to arrive sometime around five thirty.  This gave my honey even less time to get the meal together.  I shared this with him as he started making the rice.  In his distress, he put too much water in with the rice.  Now he was freaking out and asking if we had some white rice he could mix in to correct the ratio of cups of rice to cups of water.  I assured him we did have more rice and got it for him.  Then, I started making the salads, so he'd have one less thing to worry about for dinner.  Mom showed up as I was putting the salads on the table.


Mom had brought my beloved dog, Roxy, with her.  My honey was immediately greeted with doggie kisses which seeemed to calm him down some.  My mother, being quite used to showing up for meals at my house that aren't ready when she arrives, sat down at the kitchen table and chatted with us while I set the table and my honey finished cooking the taco meats.  He did a great job of making light of his delayed start and measuring blunder and even though I knew how upset he had been earlier, I don't think Mom had any idea how frazzled he was.

"I like taco meat!" Roxy's eyes seemed to be saying
as she shamelessly begged for food.

Everything else came off without a hitch.  The meal was delicious!  Mom was impressed with my honey's culinary skills and told him he was now the chef for family taco night over at her house.  Yay!  What a success!  My honey even made my mom smile when she saw him slipping table scraps to Roxy, the wondermutt, under the table.





I did dishes in the kitchen while my honey showed my mom some of the personal touches he had added to the living room (such as the hockey player bobbleheads on the  mantel and our massive joint DVD collection).  Mom and I had choir practice after dinner, so Mom made her farewells to my honey and headed out to the car.  I had to laugh once she was out the door.  "Now you know how I felt when your parents were coming over for dinner!" I told him.  I gave him a big hug and kiss and told him I loved him before heading out to choir practice.