I Married a Food Writer

When men find out what my wife does for a living, they invariably ask the same question: * “Is she a good cook?”

“Of course she’s a good cook, you ninny,” I want to shout. “Why would someone be publishing her cookbooks if she weren’t a good cook?” * But I don’t say that. Reminding myself that each questioner is a potential book buyer, I think royalties and make nice. * “Oh, yes, she’s a great cook,” I say, smiling as pleasantly as possible and pointing to my own belly, which has unfortunately grown in tandem with her shelf space in the Library of Congress. * I am married to Helene Siegel, who has given new meaning to the phrase “melting pot” as the author or co-author of 32 cookbooks, including books on French, Italian, Chinese and Mexican cooking for beginners, “Cooking With the Too Hot Tamales,” and too many others to mention.

At this point, the conversation takes an entirely predictable pause. Whomever I’m chatting with appears to experience brain-lock. He retreats into some private space where, I imagine, there is just him, his mother and some comfort food she made for him long ago.

After his moment of silence to honor being spoon-fed chocolate pudding, he informs me with heartfelt intensity that I am one lucky guy.

“You get to taste?” he asks, just to make sure.

Since I do not want to trash his vision of food and love, I resist the temptation to observe that his insights into what it is like to be married to a culinary professional might be a trifle superficial.

I merely nod, taking what smug pleasure I can in the knowledge that he and I are indeed separated by a vast gulf, which I refer to as the Gulf of El Pollo Loco.

He is on the shore where you have to stand in line for take-out food when your wife is exhausted from a day’s work. On my shore, you go only when your wife’s not around.

What I don’t tell him is that I have had to pay a high psychic price to get to my shore, compromising my two basic food principles: Food should be quick and food should be cheap.

These principles date from my childhood, during which my family favored all-you-can-eat buffets and certain family members thought that all-you-can-eat also referred to after you’d left. They would take cameras out of cases, insert plastic liners and pile in helpings to go.

At the apogee of single guy-hood, I merged quick and cheap neatly into a diet that consisted solely of submarine sandwiches. I would buy one a day and slice it up for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

One of my literary heroes was Edward Delaney, a fictional New York chief of detectives who liked to eat wet, sloppy sandwiches over the sink.

On the rare occasions I did go to fancy restaurants, mishaps tended to occur that kept me from going back.

My puzzlement at unusual utensils prompted questions from imperious waiters such as, “Monsieur does not like zee fish fork?”

Or worse, guffaws. “I’ll take the steak tartare--medium rare,” I once ordered. “Steak tartare is uncooked, sir,” the waiter reminded me, once he and the diners at the next table had stopped laughing.

Then I met Helene. She was not yet a cookbook writer, but I could tell right away that food was really important to her. So I pretended it was important to me.

Learning that her beloved grandfather was a baker, I bought a copy of the “Joy of Cooking” and taught myself how to bake bread. When I showed up at her apartment with a fresh-baked loaf, I could tell I had won her heart. That was the last time I baked bread.

Once we married, I had many adjustments to make. I couldn’t understand how she could sit in a restaurant for hours, nor why she would want to spend $100 of our money for the privilege. She explained to me that this was how adults had fun. Didn’t I know how to have fun?

I would sit there glaring, teeth clenched, calculating. For two of these meals, I could buy a swell pair of Rollerblades.

For me, food was still just something necessary. For her, it was vital, sensual, riveting.

When she began cooking for a living, things only got worse. Not only did I have to go out to more restaurants, I couldn’t even order what I wanted.

You would think a guy could get a green salad. But no, if I get a green salad, I am called out for interfering with research, depriving her of the chance to sample a more complex dish that--you never know--could provide the inspiration for a new recipe.

At home, she would test the new recipes on me. I had to learn how to be helpful by taking pop quizzes. These could feature tough, possibly trick questions such as, “Is the tarragon in balance, dear?”

Because so much food was passing through our kitchen, there was also a lot of work which, like many modern couples, we divided.

I do the big weekly shopping. She does most of the daily runs. And I frequently supplement her runs on my way home. Need the freshest fish? Some piece of exotic produce? I know where to go. Heaven help me if I cannot distinguish a Yellow Finn potato from a Yukon Gold.

Dishes are another commodity I handle in bulk. Our deal is whoever doesn’t cook cleans up. So that means me.

While it may be true that I am the last man in America to come home to dinner on the table, it is also true that I don’t come home to just one dinner. There are usually three or four. Along with the pots and pans that produced them.

Sometimes my wife tries to give me a break from the dishes by saying she’s burned out, she just can’t cook. She encourages me to do dinner.

But I don’t fall for it anymore. It’s not worth it.

If I cook, I must tread lightly. First I have to rein in my culinary wanderlust. For fear of hurt feelings, I ignore our vast library of second-rate cookbooks by other people and use only those written by Helene Siegel.

I must be cheerful as Ms. Siegel chimes in with remarks such as, “I can’t believe you still don’t know how to chop an onion.”

Finally, I must be willing to be reminded of minor past lapses, such as the time I notified the family that my pork loin with fennel was ready, only to realize that I had forgotten to turn on the oven.

For all the commotion that ensued, you’d think I had slashed the “Mona Lisa.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I just don’t want to give the impression that being married to a cookbook writer is totally gravy. Although it may be soon.

In the last three years, my wife has written a series of single-subject cookbooks, all called totally something--as in “Totally Garlic,” “Totally Peppers,” “Totally Mushrooms”--you get the idea.

And if her publisher thinks there is a market, “Totally Gravy” could be the theme of my next month’s meals.

That makes at least as much sense as the already completed “Totally Nuts.” An elderly cousin who happened to drop by for dinner during that one undoubtedly came away thinking the title suited us, as Helene laid out a bountiful six-course meal that would have constipated a squirrel.

These single-subject books have been a blessing and a curse. During our salmon phase, guess what budget buster became our 5-year-old’s favorite food? Our teenager was in heaven with “Totally Pizza” but totally depressed during eggplant.

Helene felt like an executioner during “Totally Lobster,” and I became a little nerve-jangled during “Totally Coffee,” growing wistful for the days she was co-authoring the “Ma Cuisine Cooking School Cookbook” and we sampled the signature dishes of many of L.A.’s finest chefs.

I still remember as a seminal appetizer the scrambled eggs carefully put back into their shells and topped with caviar, offered by the chef at L’Orangerie.

That dish gave me my first inkling that maybe Helene had a point.

Maybe Barney’s Beanery was not the best restaurant in L.A.