Tuesday, March 22, 2011

My Favorite Things, Great Couple Activity!



My Favorite Things

About ten years ago, when our daughters were school-aged children and their activity schedules drove our lives, I began to miss the times when David and I did things that were couple oriented.

One day as I was shopping at Central Market, I noticed an advertisement for a gumbo-cooking contest. I harassed David until he conceded and agreed to enter the contest with me.  We selected several cookbooks from Louisiana and started reading the recipes to identify the ones with ingredients we thought would make the best gumbo.

Over about a three-week period we tried four different recipes.  I was convinced that okra was the secret ingredient to a really great tasting gumbo and David’s opinion differed. So we prepared our original recipe partly with okra and partly without, poured it into Tupperware containers and headed to the tasting kitchen at Central Market to win the Blue Ribbon.

It was fun to have a focus for our date nights and to cook something together with the purpose of perfecting it and making it our own family recipe.   We were dumbfounded when our gumbo was not selected as the winner and decided that Texans do not have the same discernment that those native to Louisiana possess. 

The Hatton Family Gumbo is among the best in the country (at least we think so) and is definitely going into “my favorite things” album.  It always tastes the best when David does the laborious job of making the roux; you can see from the photo that he cooks it until just before the burning point, which gives it a rich, smoky flavor.  

What can you intentionally do with your spouse to create a fun memory?  Any suggestions?