Now, the challenge is: do you agree to disagree and choose to find a way to live in peace?
As a southerner, I love to cook "southern" dishes. As a Yankee, my husband has "northern" taste for his. When we first were married I would get upset when I prepared a delicious meal and he would he would come home and start tasting it and telling me: "This needs a little allspice, this needs a little turmeric, this needs a little dill,..." To my way of tasting it needed nothing but for him to be thankful I prepared it and to be eaten!
And so meal after meal, he would doctor the dishes and I would get angry. Besides not wanting him to doctor my perfect dish, after he doctored it, I did not like the taste and could not eat it. I made it. It took me hours, now thanks to his doctoring it with Yankee spices, I could not eat it. It was strange tasting and I did not want the strange taste, my dish was good enough.
Finally, he did this doctoring enough, that I stopped cooking for him altogether, I told him to eat at this mother's. I could eat a quick banana sandwich and voila, no dishes to clean or wash, I cut my time in the kitchen to zero. Banana sandwiches make grocery shopping easier too. I really disliked grocery shopping!
He was not happy with my decision. His mother cooked for him every day of his life, when he was home, he thought a wife would too. I gave him a recipe book and said, "You can read, you can learn to cook!"
In time after years of marriage, many things changed for the better, he learned to cook, (bonus, he loved to cook) and he loved to go to the grocery store shopping, we each cooked our dish and would separate out a portion for the other to flavor it to individual tastes, and he learned to like some of my Southern dishes, and I learn to like some of his Yankee dishes. We laugh now when we think of the arguments over cooking we use to share. We both are great cooks and now we both cook holiday meals. I make the southern dishes we like as a family and he makes his Yankee dishes, the children are great cooks as well. Holiday dinners have everyone's favorite dish on the table.
Everyone helps to buy, cook, and clean up the dishes. There are no disagreements anymore.
Thankful for disagreeable viewpoints that cause change. If peace is to be, we all need to pitch in to help. First ground rules are set, respect for the rules, and all agree to work towards the goal and in time, the respect for differing opinions with the agreement to work together. If peace is to be, it must begin with me. Now there is peace in the kitchen, it can spread to the world if we work together.
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