Scott worked a short distance from my apartment, but his place was way out in the suburbs. This meant that he was constantly staying over after we had spent our evenings out, so that he wouldn't have far to travel for work in the morning. Eventually, I told him he ate too much and would have to start paying part of the grocery bill. He duly did. A few months later, I explained that he basically lived there so he was going to have to start paying part of the rent. This, he decided, was not a good idea. Instead, he convinced me that we should move to his place in the suburbs on the Maryland side of DC, where the rent was a 1/3 of what mine was. I agreed, and looking back , it wasn't the smartest decision I have ever made, considering I agreed to it before I had even seen it. However, I was in love, and love has the ability to put the logical part of your brain into a drug induced coma, without you even knowing it.
When I first went into his house, I had to do a double take. He had moved into this house shortly before he met me, and had never quite unpacked. Furthermore, when his ex-wife moved to New York she had left quite a bit of her things behind, and he didn't know what she wanted so he kept everything. Meaning, there was a path between boxes to his bed. And the clothes, oh how Scotty loves his clothes. He had an entire room devoted to clothes and shoes, with absolutely no regard to organization. It looked like the men's section of some department store had puked all over everything.
The first night we were there, I sat down on a pile of clothes in a chair, and cried for him to take me back to Arlington. The poor thing, he took it in stride, but I am sure I knocked the air out of his soul.
The next day I did three things.
1. I got my attitude in check. I remembered when I was a little girl that my mother would dry our clothes on the heater vent in the winter because we didn't have a dryer, and how in the summer my brother and I would put our sheets in the freezer so that we could fall asleep without air conditioning. Scott's house had both a dryer and air conditioining, so by comparison I was doing alright. Time to leave my snobbish personality back in Arlington where it belonged. Plus, I was in love, and it shouldn't matter where we live as long as we had each other, right?
2. Hired a cleaning lady.
3. I signed a lease on the most beautiful, wonderful, lavish office building in the city right on Pennsylvania avenue complete with a doorman. I could still have my cake and eat it too. After all, I could always spend even more hours at work.
In the grand scheme of things it was a very short period of my life that I spent in Maryland, and it wasn't long until I had moved on to better places. However, something happened when I lived there that would change my life forever. I met a kindered spirit...Scott's roomate named Maurice.
Maurice is one of the sweetest souls a person could come across in this lifetime. His heart knows no malice, his smile is ever present and genuine, and my crossing paths with him became a pivotal moment in my life.
He was in the finals throws of graduate school to become an architect. He didn't date, and to this day I am not sure if he does. Not because he isn't good looking, or the sweetest thing since honey, or that he wouldn't be a catch of a lifetime for some sweet girl, but because he is incredibly shy, and when I say shy I mean VERY shy.
So how did this shy sweet soul spend his evenings? Cooking, oh how he could cook. I remember him staying up all night baking a chicken and then turning it into the most wonder curried chicken salad my tastebuds had ever encountered. I was in food lust.
He introduced me to the world of food love, and how food can be a canvas for one to paint a part of themselves. While Scott worked late into the evening, Maurice and I would stay up cooking and playing scrabble. He would introduce to me to far off flavors, and I introduced him to good ol Midwestern fried goodness.
At that point in my life, I assumed that all edible substances were food, until he showed me otherwise. At one point I used coffee mate flavored creamer in my coffee. I offered Maurice some and his gentle response was "I don't eat hydrogenated fats." "Hmm, what the freak is hydrogenated fat?" I asked. And so it began...my devotion to real food. I shudder to think that if I hadn't have crossed paths with Maurice, I might still be eating margarine, or consider velveeta cheese an actual cheese. Oh my, what a scary thought!
So there you have it... my Maurice...instigator of my life long love affair with food.
Cheers and Happy Food Love Eats!
Lucinda
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