The meal that "Sealed the Deal"....
What is the meal that you made for your sweetie that "Sealed the Deal"??
I made a Tuna Noodle Casserole and then sent a duplicate home with him for his buddies...
We were married 1 year later....
So what have you made that Sealed the Deal???
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thanks to all the posters here- nothing has officially "sealed the deal" for me (in the most official way) but this thread has made me remember all of the amazing meals my SO and I have shared, and all of the terrible failures and subsequent takeout dinners (hello KFC doubledown as a graduation dinner haha)
without him knowing, this thread has made me love my boyfriend more. so thanks, chowhounders. -
When I met my husband, he out out for every meal. Really, I mean EVERY meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The first time I opened his fridge and saw nothing but beer and fruit punch I nearly fell over laughing. I couldn't conceive of someone living like that.
I knew this guy was something special when he announced that he was going to figure out how to cook something for me. I came over to his house and he proudly presented Chex mix! He'd had to go out and buy the pans, spoons, the ingredients, absolutely everything for the prep. He called his grandma to get the recipe ("Um, it's on the box, hon."). He followed the directions fretfully and carefully, and when he came to the point at which you have to stir the mix 15 minutes into the baking, he stared at the oven blankly, then called out to his roommate, "Budri, how do we get hot things out of the oven?"
The chex mix was silly and savory, the gesture incredibly sweet. I fell for him completely as he related the story of his cooking adventure. I'm still definitely the cook of the family, but he makes the world's best grilled cheese sandwich, mans the grill with style, and makes divine Belgian waffles for me on special occasions. While sometimes I wish that he enjoyed cooking more so it could be something we could do together, I have to admit, I'm awfully lucky as it is.
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ChristinaMason
Jul 6, 2010 06:12 PM
Back when we were "just friends"---and pretty new friends, at that---my guy invited me over for dinner. When I showed up, he was still cooking, and at some point, he ran out "for some cream" because his pasta was just not quite right. We finally sat down to an awesome pasta primavera and I was surprised how delicious it was (I didn't know he could even cook). I quizzed him on the recipe, at which point it came out that he had painstakingly roasted each red pepper by hand.
I was touched he'd gone to so much trouble, and I fell a little bit in love right there.
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Indirect Heat
Jul 6, 2010 08:46 AM
Bacon salad. Without a doubt. My wife loves her bacon, and she fell in love with me over that salad. http://indirectheat.blogspot.com/2009...
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I don't remember the first meal I cooked for him, but I do remember one of the first things he cooked for me. He didn't cook when we met; his friend had warned me that he ate "box chicken" (the kind that comes with rice/potatoes and seasoning, so all you do is add chicken) and frozen veggies or bagged salad every night. Well, one night we had dinner at his apartment, and he made tacos. Nothing crazy fancy, but they were pretty darn good for tacos made by a non-cook. I found out later that he'd left work early that afternoon so he had enough time to cook. :)
Now he cooks... he made this amazing peach-strawberry crumble this past week... mmmm...
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mamachef
Jul 4, 2010 11:33 AM
I made a small leg of lamb roasted in red wine with black olives, garlic roasted potatoes and a salad. We'd been sending each other mixed signals, and i didn't know what to expect until we were watching tv after dinner, and he took a deep, nervous breath (pretty funny for an extraordinarily handsome 55-year-old gent), put his arms around me and kissed me. I think it was the olives. : )
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Somen noodles in peanut sauce, a recipe from Gourmet mag in the early 90's. It was our 4th date. He told me later that he took one bite and thought that this was to good to be true - I was a greal girl AND I could cook. HA. (The funny thing to me was that he ate the tofu in the dish. I found out much later that he hates tofu. So it must be true love).
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While I do remember cooking meals for my wife while we were dating, the meal that sealed the deal was our second date. She took me to a Moroccan restaurant where you have 6 courses and no silverware (except for the couscous course...I guess they got tired of cleaning up after all of us messy Americans). Anyway, for dessert you receive a cup of mint tea and a bowl of fruit. My wife then proceeded to peel an orange and feed me the wedges.
I guess you could say she's had me eating out her hand ever since.
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Popkin
Jul 2, 2010 03:48 PM
I made chicken tacos for him. It was also one of the first recipes I pretty much made up one day based on what we had in the house. The filling consisted of leftover chicken, one can each of a particular mexican salsa (one verde one rancho), spanish rice, and refried beans all simmered together, then fried into small corn tortillas.
The first dessert was rice crispy treats the way my mom made them - with peanut butter chips (these days I just add a few globs of peanut butter). He also distinctly remembers a brownie streak I went on early in our relationship, where I was trying to find a perfect brownie recipe, and he was enjoying the results :D
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weezieduzzit
Jul 2, 2010 01:33 PM
Although I suspect the Beef Wellington and Chicken Cordon Bleu I made him when we first met sealed the deal, it's the bacon wrapped turkey we had for Thanksgiving this year that he has as the wallpaper on his cell phone.
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buttertart
Jul 2, 2010 11:03 AM
The deal was sealed before I started cooking for him (hey, it was 1972 and love at first sight - I moved into his dorm room 48 hours after meeting him, I knew he was the one for me when I saw his Richard and Mimi Farina album...) but we got an electric skillet and an oldfashioned toaster (the kind that has 2 little doors for the bread and you have to turn the bread around in it, it was cheap because it was so oldfashioned and I bet almost nobody else here remembers them) within a few days of meeting and I cooked in the room...back bacon sandwiches a specialty, as was one of challah, Fontina and watercress, all from the Kensington market. I still have the spatula we bought for me to use. The toaster and skillet have gone by the wayside. But I happily still have the man, all these years later.
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When I met my now-husband 15 years ago, he was subsisting on a diet of chicken breasts, frozen mixed vegetables, pasta and the kindness of married friends so it didn't take anything exotic in the way of cooking to get his attention. I think the first dinner I cooked for him was beef bourguignon.
While we were dating he always gobbled up his salad before touching anything else I had made. It wasn't until we were married that I found out he hated salads and wanted to get that part of the meal over and done with. I've been gradually teaching him to like salads but it's slow work.
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The deal was set long before I cooked for my wife, but the first time (and second) I cooked for her, it was both for a group. The first time I came up to visit I cooked for a group of about 6 or 8. Salmon steaks with a pink peppercorn sauce and I can't remember what else. The second time I cooked was Thanksgiving dinner for her family two days after I moved to Jersey. Turducken, a regular turkey (since she feared no one in her family with the exception of two people would eat the turducken, rice, peas, mashed potatoes, oyster dressing, stuffed mirlitons, and bread pudding for dessert. I think that was for 12 people. Now I cook roughly 6 nights a week, she'll cook every now and then, but I do love it when she cooks.
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nomadchowwoman
Jul 2, 2010 08:46 AM
Well, I wasn't trying to seal the deal, wasn't even near sure he was "the one," but my husband always tells me he was hooked after I invited him to have lunch one day (soon after we met) before we went out to an event together. He was expecting a ham sandwich, but I made a diih from The Silver Palate cookbook, "Chicken Monterey," and he couldn't get over it.
I later realized that he had no good food history. (In fact, when we met, he was living off supermarket rotisserie chicken and salad bar salad, one each of which he bought every three days, and thought he was in Gourmet Heaven. The flip side was he took me out to wonderful restaurants all the time while we were "courting").
Twenty-plus years later, food plays a big role in our lives. It's love, comfort, compromise, celebration. -
linguafood
Jul 2, 2010 08:43 AM
that would be my man's pasta with meat sauce he made for me while we were dating. we had been going out for a month or so, and that dish was just great. it's nice to meet a man who knows what he's doing in the kitchen (other rooms help, too :-D).
topped only by showing up at my pad a few days later with lamb chops he had marinated in oo, mint, rosemary, thyme, parsley, and garlic. we ate them while watching the x-files....
that was 11 years ago.
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The meal where I knew I loved him (he already knew he loved me and had been telling me that we'd grow old together for over a year) was also the first meal he ever cooked for me.
He had just had chicken marinated in sprite at a friend's house a few nights earlier and was "inspired".
He marinated 2 flank steaks (yes, for two people), in a combination of fresh squeezed lemon juice, fresh lime juice, and white wine, overnight. He then baked them in the oven.
As I took my second bite and realized I was going to actually eat this meal so as not to discourage him, I realized that I was in love.
Luckily, he then took a bite and said "let's order pizza!"
Needless to say, I do all of the cooking in our home. :)
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MandalayVA
Jul 2, 2010 06:35 AM
Roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy and peas, cooked in the world's tiniest functioning kitchen. This was eleven days after we met. Six days later, we were engaged. Six months after that we were married. That'll be twelve years ago next month.
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re: MandalayVA
bushwickgirl
Jul 2, 2010 06:41 AM
Wow, you must make some pretty fine roast beef. Or maybe it was the gravy; I could fall in love over good gravy.
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bushwickgirl
Jul 2, 2010 05:44 AM
Simply put, lasagna (and I suspect it also had something to do with the fact that I owned a rather large television.) That's led to fifteen years together, and a promise to love forever.
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Very early on, probably just after a few weeks of dating, I made a simple beef stroganoff. I didn't know then that my BF's mother hated cooking and his father wasn't much of a cook either. After we ate the stroganoff, my BF said to me, "I never understood why people preferred homemade cooking before." Now, twenty years later, I've taught him to cook and he's become quite adventurous!
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re: dustchick
ChristinaMason
Jul 6, 2010 06:05 PM
<my BF said to me, "I never understood why people preferred homemade cooking before.">
Sweet!
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janetofreno
Jul 1, 2010 10:38 PM
A big pot of chili, cooked at his house in Lake Tahoe. I don't remember what was for dessert.....:-)
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susancinsf
Jul 1, 2010 08:15 PM
My recipe for cioppino, some sourdough bread, and a nice bottle of red wine, served 'picnic style' on a rug in front of the fireplace on a cold winter's night during dungeness season....there might have been something with chocolate and rasberries and perhaps some champagne for dessert later, but I don't clearly remember that part, and it wasn't necessary...
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It was a random night.... our second date. He brought raw ingredients to my apartment along with a small hibachi and made grilled pork chops, fresh green beans, a wild rice pilaf and a fresh salad. The pork chop was juicy with just the amount of char. At this point, I was willing to consider him as dating material.
But then, after cleaning up the dishes, he truly sealed the deal by feeding my 90 lb German shepard/collie mix dog the bones. [As a reformed vegetarian, I didn't know that dogs could eat meat!]
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iluvcookies
Jul 1, 2010 01:21 PM
I made Thanksgiving Dinner for 6, all by myself, 95% of it from scratch (I used premade pie shells since I hadn't quite mastered pie dough yet)
Mushroom barley soup (my great grandma's recipe)
Turkey with wild rice and mushroom bread stuffing
Fresh cranberry sauce
baked sweet potatoes
fresh green beans
pecan pieAlthough I have a feeling that doing this without the complaining that other females in his family have done may have been just as important as the food.
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New Year's Eve, 1999:
Chicken Paprikash
Handmade Spaetzle
German beer
Fireworks over the harbour that we could see from my kitchen windowAfter that evening, we never looked back.
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re: christy1122
goodhealthgourmet
Jul 1, 2010 08:50 PM
"What a New Years Bang!!!"
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ahem...Cachetes said nothing about post-prandial activity ;)
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