“Barely three weeks after my son’s wedding and honeymoon, I noticed a rather unusual pattern of him “stopping by” my place on his way home in the evenings. I thought he was just missing his original home. I asked him why but he gave no reasonable answer. He always asked for dinner when he came around, which was rather odd for a newly married man. On his fourth visit, he came with one of his friends who was well known to me. I confided in his friend, who simply told me that his new wife “cannot cook”. In fact, on the days he doesn’t stop by, he eats at that friend’s house or he eats out. This was fire on the mountain, the choice was between me encouraging him to eat outside at another household and risk ending his marriage or save the day. I opted for the latter. When he showed up again on Friday evening, I told him to tell his wife to see me on Saturday morning, we needed to go somewhere together, it was a woman’s thing. She came as I requested and I told her I was entertaining my Church Society members and needed to cook for them. She was to assist me with shopping for the cooking. I noticed the fright on her face. After returning home from the shopping, I told her she wasn’t cooking because the people involved had very peculiar tastes, she was however to pay attention to all that I did in the kitchen. We finished (or I finished) all the cooking in about four hours. I made four different soups that I knew my son loved, made different stews with chicken, fish and beef and steaming jolls of rice. After finishing, I told her to divide everything we cooked into two equal portions. She was surprised when I told her to take one portion with her when she was going home. I knew the food would last about six weeks, and as predicted, my son did not show up at my door until week seven. I knew the food……
