A few months ago I decided to make some of Rob's favorite meals growing up. I realized that I had made very few (as in NONE) of his mother's recipes and resolved to be better about this. So, without him knowing, I chose a few special meals to make for him.
Deciding on The First Meal was the hardest. I wanted it to be something extra special. There was one meal that stuck out in my mind: Hungarian Noodles. Whenever we talked about childhood meals, this one always came up. So it was decided: Hungarian Noodles would be The First Meal.
Here's the ingredients:
3 chicken bouillon cubes *¼ c. boiling water
*1 can cream of mushroom *½ c. chopped onion
*2 T Worcestershire sauce *2 T poppy seeds
*1/8 – ¼ t. garlic powder *1/8 – ¼ t. hot pepper sauce
2 c. cottage cheese 2 c. sour cream
1 pkg. med. noodles, cooked and drained ¼ c. parmesan cheese (to sprinkle over top)
paprika (to sprinkle lightly over top)
If you don't cook, I'll help you out: This is a strange combination of ingredients. But it must be good, right, to be Rob's favorite!
So I made it for him. He came home and smelled dinner cooking (basically you combine all the ingredients and then bake it for 45 minutes at 350 F.). He said, "What are you making?" "Something," I replied, being playfully mysterious. "It smells ... interesting." Interesting wasn't the word I was hoping for, but I had to admit that it didn't smell yummy to me. Interesting was the closest positive word for it. I was hoping he'd recognize the smell, but he didn't.
Surely, then, he'd recognize it when I set it in front of him. His response, again, was, "What IS this? It looks ... interesting." I told him he'd just have to try it and that I was pretty sure he'd like it. He took his first bite and still did not recognize it! I was a little sad, since I'd made a special effort to make his favorite meal, that he didn't even know it by smell, sight OR taste! I finally told him what it was, and he started to laugh. "Didn't I tell you that I don't really like Hungarian Noodles?" I started laughing, too. I told him, "But you talk about it all the time!" "Yeah, didn't I always say, "My Mom would make this one meal and I didn't actually like it"?" I didn't remember that last part.
So he ate it anyway, even though he still didn't like it. Then I ate some. Truly, it's not very good (who thought of combining such ingredients?!). The kids then tried it. I was pretty sure they wouldn't like it, but I told them it was one of Grandma's favorite recipes to try and convince them that it was good. Miciah tried it and said, "This is yucky, Mom."
Rob felt horrible and said, "Save the leftovers. I'll take them for lunch." I told him that it wasn't neccessary to eat food he didn't like because he felt bad that I'd made a special effort for a meal. I threw the rest out.
We then called Rob's mom and told her about our disastrous meal. She has a good sense of humor and she was able to laugh with us about it. It's a good memory.
(And I later made him another childhood meal that he really enjoyed and that he recognized at first smell. So it all turned out okay.)
...
Now fastforward to a few days ago. It's Rob's birthday this coming Monday, so his parents are driving down for the weekend. His mom offered to make him a special meal, which is very nice of her, and I thought very cute (they're always your babies, right?). I asked him what he was going to have her make. He said he wasn't sure, he'd have to think about it. I put it out of my mind.
I was vacuuming the floor a day or so later and out-of-the-blue Rob said, "I think I'm going to ask my mom to make Hungarian Noodles." I looked at him and he was already starting to laugh. We both laughed so hard we cried.
He did tell his mom he wanted Hungarian Noodles and she replied with, "You little snot!"
So go ahead and try Hungarian Noodles if you want (but trust me, you don't want). I just wanted to share the story because belly laughing with Rob was heaven and brought me back to a time when the only thing we had on our agendas was making each other laugh. I fell in love with Rob all over again. He's genius when he's trying to be funny!
Thank you, Rob, and happy (early) birthday!
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