Today we are planning a wedding.......
My Ninja, Nina's second eldest daughter is planning a wedding. Nina explains that Charlie's (short for Charlene) fiance Jeff has been asking Nina and her husband to marry Charlie for over a year. Yes, you guessed it, Nina's 'old school' beliefs and ideas about marriage have been the hold up here and for good reason (she says).
"Let them be happy." Her husband John says from behind the rattling of his newspaper in den. He mumbles something else inaudible, and Nina calls back
"Mind your business John." She then turns to me sitting across the kitchen table and says "They've dated for five years, these two. They got engaged three years ago and Jeff has been asking me and John to have a wedding to the girl for about fourteen months....and a few days." She stops fidgeting with her ring, looks up at me, shrugs her shoulders and adds "but whose counting?" Her thick accent breaking through. She's counting, I know she is. Marriage is a big deal to Nina.
She prepared the wedding cake for her eldest daughter's wedding a few years before. It was beautiful. The wedding was stressful. The groom's mother was a pain in the neck, but my Ninja was composed and awesome through the whole thing. That time she was only creating the cake; this time she won't actually be cooking the meal (it's being catered) but she has been chosen by Charlie to plan the menu.
"Sometimes, my kids don't understand the freedoms they have. They get to choose things that I never got to." Her parents were very strict and very much thought in favor of arranged marriages, Nina's parents had had an arranged marriage. Fortunately for Nina and her siblings the parents decided not to continue that tradition, I think she used that 'idea' more to teach her children about the importance of making solid and good decisions than anything else.
Today we are planning a 5 course meal. I am excited to hear her opinions on the lovely foods that we will be putting together for the menu.
"I think we should start with Wedding Soup. You understand the five things that make a successful marriage, yes?" I shake my head. But I am absolutely open to hearing what her perspective is going to be.
The Wedding Soup represents HEALTH; the staple Nina says that will carry the marriage. There are four other areas that are dependent on the health of the marriage; health is the umbrella for the others.
The first and generally the most obvious when we hear the word health is physical health.
"You must have good health and mental strength to endure the long hours of balancing work, and family. People forget that once the kids come along, you still gotta have time with your spouse away from the kids. It's a constant battle to keep things together. Something is always trying to come between you...job, parents, family, friends with opinions or jealousies. Yes jealousies. We will talk about that later, Darling." She drawls at me and chuckles.
The Wedding soup generally has a chicken broth base, meatballs, sausage or some type of chicken as well as bread crumbs and small noodles like an orzo or tiny stars with vegetables such as celery, onion, and carrots. My ninja says "The broth represents physical strength, the meat represents mental strength, the noodles and bread are the bombardments of everyday life and the vegetables are the divine balance that you seek." I never learned so much from soup!
"Course two will be an appetizer whose fancy name is hors d'oeuvre." She says it like it's spelled, not like it's pronounced or derve. Her thick accent getting in the way again, as it often does when she's excited or stressed. "Let's stick with calling them appetizers, no? It's much easier." I nod "You are so quiet today." She notices.
"I am learning," I tell her "You can't learn when your mouth is moving." She smiles at me and shakes her finger reminding me of Billy Crystal in The Princess Bride when he talks about his favorite sandwich.
"At least I raised you right." she jokes. "Now, Shrimp cocktail or bacon wrapped oysters?"
"What's the main course?" I ask. She looks at me and I immediately get that her question, though she said it out loud, was rhetorical and for sorting purposes only. We are not yet to the lesson of the main course, I stop talking and she continues, until she has decided that the appetizer will be Shrimp Cocktail.
The Shrimp Cocktail represents what Nina calls HOUSEKEEPING. She explains that two people moving into together have a responsibility to create a nice home for one another. Sometimes that means one handles everything at home while the other handles work or things outside the home. But it should be a combined effort and not an expectation.
The shrimp can be eaten alone or dunked in a lovely spiced red cocktail sauce, either way she says when they come together, it should work well. The horseradish should not over power the sweetness of the red sauce. She explains the dangers of the sauce being too spicy.
"If one gives more and the other takes too much, your house will be out of balance. This makes people fight over things that can be handled by simple communication. Sometimes we don't think first. We react." She raps on her head closed fist like she's thumping a coconut. "Anyway, the cocktail sauce has to be perfectly balanced tangy to sweet." She puts her pad of paper down and goes to make lunch. I follow her into the kitchen.
to be continued...
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