Steamed

plain offensive. The first time my ex-boyfriend Sean made dinner for me at his cramped studio apartment, he somehow managed to burn the spaghetti while it was boiling (something I hadn’t known was possible) and to oversalt the red sauce so horrendously that we both kept puckering our mouths as we tried to eat. Sean got high marks for effort and agreement: he couldn’t cook, but we agreed that the burned and oversalted dinner was awful. We dated for two years.
    After Sean and I broke up, I briefly dated Zach, who was definitely not my type, but I was lonely and taken in by his muscular build, strong jaw, and fully loaded black Jeep Cherokee. I predicted his good looks and cool car would eventually enable me to overlook his deficiencies, among them, that he was not very bright and not particularly interesting. He lived two hours away in Connecticut, and after the novelty of his body had worn off, the distance had meant tiresome drives followed by insufferably long weekends during which I made ineffectual attempts to find something intellectually redeeming about him. When that strategy failed, I decided that if cognitive capabilities weren’t his strength, I’d address the food angle. So far, his dinners had consisted of baked beans and franks, but maybe he just needed some culinary education. After all, it wasn’t his fault if he didn’t know any better; it was up to me to teach him about meals that didn’t come out of plastic wrappers and tin cans.
    One cold Saturday morning in February, I drove to Zach’s place with my car full of fresh produce and two beautiful cod fillets. I slaved in the kitchen finely slicing red peppers, onions, zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, and cilantro. I laid the fillets in foil packets, slathered them with the veggies, and doused the fish in white wine and butter pats. Zach looked on in bewilderment, having probably never even seen a piece of fresh fish before. When his virgin kitchen was filled with the heavenly aroma of the bubbling cod purses and audible sizzling was erupting from the oven, Zach curiously went over to the radiator to see if the pipes were hissing again. I explained that the unusual noises were the result of actual food cooking. As proof, I had to crack the oven to show him. I served the fish packets with plain couscous and French bread. Zach diligently tasted his fish and, surprised, pronounced it “not bad.” He then devoured the whole dish in seconds, leaned back in his chair, and reached for the remote to check in on Sports Center, which he’d grudgingly turned off when dinner was ready.
    I was about to give up on Zach but went to see him the following weekend after he’d called me to say that he wanted to make me dinner since I’d done so for him. I made the tiresome trek to his place that Friday night with the hop« that some sort of miraculous transformation had occurred following his first fish dinner. Much to my dismay, Zach had gone to the local grocery store and bought some frozen haddock fillets that he bravely slapped onto a dry skillet while I sat frightened in the living room. I mustered all the graciousness I could and bit into the miserable fish, which was accompanied by a side of canned green beans. Zach, who didn’t seem to notice much difference between his fish and mine, once again pronounced the meal “not bad.” The declaration marked the demise of our relationship. I fled after dinner, pausing outside his building to vomit in the privet hedge before speeding back to Brighton.
    Josh was clearly on a whole new culinary level. I went to bed that Saturday night feeling like Christmas was coming.
    On Sunday morning I decided I’d better go retrieve my car from the funeral home in Cambridge, where I’d probably amassed nine hundred dollars in parking tickets. I called Heather, hoping she’d take pity on me and drive me to collect my Saturn.
    “Well, where have you been, my long lost sister? Huh?” Heather said as she picked up the phone.
    “Come get me, and I’ll tell you. You won’t even believe the week I’ve had. Drive me to my car in Cambridge, and you’ll hear all about it,” I said, knowing Heather would do anything for a good story.
    “Fine. I’m heading over to Mom and Dad’s with Walker and Lucy. Let me just get them ready, and I’ll come over. Meet me outside your house.”
    Twenty-five minutes later I was comfortably seated in Heather’s Mazda minivan tickling my adorable niece and nephew. “All right,” Heather