Food Fight

There are two things that my husband and I frequently argue about that both have the potential to morph into a death match in the style of those Knock ‘Em plastic thingies where have the handles and little plastic robot dudes punch each other until one of their heads pops up. These are:

1) If the state of Illinois should have a 5% tax increase in order to continue to fund essential services such as education, police, and human services. (Can’t tell where I stand on this issue, can you?)

            AND

2) The sensibility of making food items one can buy at the store or a restaurant.

You would think that with everything that has went down in our marriage this would not be what we choose to circle each other, fists raised, nostrils flared about. (Okay, that doesn’t really happen, but it’s a fun mental picture.) Some may say we have effectively put our big issues behind us. Others may say we are transferring continued hostility from incredibly tense issues to weird things to fight about.

I am fascinated with the idea of taking some of my grocery store and restaurant favorites and making them at home. It makes me want to put my thumb to my nose and stick my tongue out at “the man”. (Damn the man! Save the Empire!) I will seriously spend hours in the kitchen and not flinch at dropping $15 on something I could have driven five minutes each way to the grocery store to pick up for $4.99. This drives my husband C.R.A.Z.Y. I have with zeal printed off blog entries explaining how to make pop tarts and oreos from scratch. I have saved recipes for Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay Biscuits Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Wendy’s Frosties, and I have seriously rocked the hell out of Girl Scout Thin Mints.

His argument is a fairly philosophical one. (One of those things I love about him that also leads to murderous fantasies and then back to love again in 30 second spans.) He believes that the act of making a store/restaurant item from scratch essentially is not making the item. It will not taste the same he says, making it not the item I love, so why not just buy the item I love rather than spending the extra time and money to make an altered version of what I love. Sigh. I wish it was simply, "You are wasting time and money". That I can handle. See how this argument escalates??

The latest spark to light the fire of dissent?

This pie.

I love this pie. I may consider giving up men if I could find a calorie free version of this pie to eat on the hour. This pie is the Village Inn special for the next week and half. If only rolls around every few months. I have tried to mimic this pie numerous times. I have not succeeded. We went to Village Inn for breakfast this morning and there was THIS PIE. My husband is lucky he didn’t hurt himself with the extreme eye roll he gave me when I squeed (you know, that happy noise you make?), snatched up the little placard, and proceeded to analyze it and take notes of each layer of this little slice of chocolatey heaven. (It’s chocolate cookie crust, chocolate ganache, dark chocolate silk, chocolate cookie crumbs, chocolate whipped cream, and chocolate curls for those who are wondering.)

I will conquer this recipe. Come hell, high water, and my husband’s eye rolling I will. Till then, I love this orange box and I’m not ashamed. (Even though he rolled his eyes he DID whisper to the man to package up a pie while I was checking out the loot in the crane grab machine.)