This Is Love: Part Two

When my children have birthdays, I make them whichever cake they request. I hate to bake, but I do it anyway because I love them.

When my husband has a birthday, he requests a meal and I make it for him. Even if it's something that I detest. This is why, eight years ago, I hung my head out the window intermittently to keep from being sick while I cooked him liver and onions. As it turns out, I was newly pregnant. I can't remember what he requested last year, but the year before that, a blizzard hit on his birthday and we were stuck at home, leaving me free to take hours to make Sour Beef and Dumplings.

Anyway, his birthday is today and this year he requested General Tso's Chicken and egg rolls. Not chicken stirfry with some sort of shortcut sauce from the grocery store, but authentic General Tso's Chicken.

So here's the thing. For starters, I don't eat Chinese food unless I make it myself. I don't know what it is about takeout, maybe too much grease, but I can't eat it without later suffering from throat searing heartburn. It's not worth it. I stopped eating it years ago. Plus, I don't like spicy food, something to do with that heartburn thing but also because I'm a big baby and I think Old Bay is hot. (Dude. You KNOW you have eaten crabs with a paper cut before. That stuff hurts!) I don't really know what authentic G.T's chicken tastes like.

All hail the Internets, because he found a great recipe on Food.com and I made it. Same for the egg rolls.

I used practically every pot I own. In the process of seeding the dried peppers, I got pepper juice in a cut on my finger, and when I sucked on that finger, I got pepper juice on my lips, which was just painful. However, I did not stick any fingers in my eyes. Plus, I spent the past two days making fudge and things for Christmas, so every surface in my already crowded kitchen was cluttered with stuff, and all that stuff was covered in a fine haze of glitter because I stupidly bought glittery containers for all the food stuffs and that glitter showers off when you just look at it. And it took some practice to get the hang of rolling the egg rolls.

But both recipes were a hit, so I'm filing them away for another time, hopefully to be done with gloves. Happy Birthday, Sweetheart. I couldn't ask for more.