My sweetheart and I are on extreme ends of the country right now, for very practical and very temporary reasons. I’m trying to keep the house clean, the animals content without their adored other person, and feed myself.
Last year I had treatments that released me from my allergy to corn products. I can go wild foraging in previously verboten aisles of the food co-op. If I so choose, I can have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at McDonalds. I could eat nothing but popcorn and ice cream made of corn syrup. But without my sweetheart, I have no appetite.
She is an outstanding cook. It’s certainly not the only reason I am heartsick without her, but when she takes out her beloved mom’s recipe book and whips up Pork Chops Liegeoise with Gruyere cheese and Dijon mustard, or her amazing bread pudding recipe, redolent of cinnamon and vanilla, which appears in "The Butch Cookbook," I am so happy I get all teary-eyed.
This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2013.