Of Love and Leftovers

My husband was just seconds from a clean getaway, but I was too fast.

“Do you have lunch?” I asked. Jeff was trying to sidle his way out of the kitchen and toward the front door—and freedom from me and my food interrogation. 

“I have lunch,” he claimed, while actually slipping a Rubbermaid food container under his sweater, an unprecedented act of sneakiness in our 34-year marriage. If Jeff had been reduced to scrounging so deep in the hinterlands of the refrigerator for edible scraps that were dangerous to even show me, the situation was dire. 

I, the Admiral of the Gruen Mess, had been down with COVID for a full week. Jeff had been working from home while taking care of me, and neither of us had even ordered any food online. Normally focused on the classically Jewish practice of food planning, procurement, preparation, and presentation, I felt so rotten all week that for the first time in years, I actually gave no thought to what my husband had been living on. Shabbat leftovers only last so long. Soup reinforcements brought by our daughter-in-law were done. By now, we could see ourselves in the reflection of the empty fridge shelves. 

“Let me see that,” I said, challenging him. I trusted this man with my life, my physical and emotional health, and my financial security, but that doesn’t mean I trusted him to pack his own lunch. On occasions when he insisted on asserting his manly independence in lunch-packing, I saw him cobble together an alarming hodgepodge of incompatible leftovers, tossed willy-nilly into the lunch container: aging brown rice, baked chicken of suspicious vintage, handfuls of cranberries, dollops of hummus, a fruity pasta salad, and a pickle. Waste not, want not.   

Since I had recovered enough to have become bossy, I had to block him from escaping with something the health department might intercept while wearing a Hazmat suit. Defiantly, he drew forth the container in a split-second lunch-reveal from his sweater. It was just a flash, but I could see that he’d be the one going to urgent care next if he ingested the contents. When had I had made that salmon? Surely before I was felled by the virus. . . and that cole slaw? Well, vinegar is a preservative, but still. . . I didn’t need to see any more.  

“Wait a few minutes, I’ll open some tuna,” I urged, flinging open the pantry door. Hello again—I’m baaaack!

Heedless, Jeff grabbed his overflowing work satchel and lunch he could have sold to the Kremlin for a billion rubles and said, “I’ll see you after work.”

“I hope so!” What is the prayer a wife says hoping she doesn’t accidentally poison her husband through allowing him to eat wizened leftovers?

These traditional roles of ours may make us seem like we’re living in a time warp, but what’s wrong with that? We play our roles with love and care, even if we come close to killing each other with kindness. 

These traditional roles of ours may make us seem like we’re living in a time warp, but what’s wrong with that? We play our roles with love and care, even if — just sometimes, you understand — we come close to killing each other with kindness. I may do the cooking around here, but he does the clean-up, and he helpfully points out the astounding job he does of making those counters shine. Knock yourself out, I always say.   

Food is supposed to be about love, not war, and I admit to sometimes skirting the border between attention and neurosis about feeding my man healthfully, which includes watching his cholesterol and trying to protect him from playing lunch roulette with relics I forgot about. That day, I felt well enough to go to the market, grateful to restock my fridge with fresh, beautiful fruits and vegetables, chicken, turkey, and fish. Assured that Jeff hadn’t keeled over from his lunch, I simmered a veal stew for dinner—normally something I’d only make for Shabbat—to celebrate my recovery and return as Admiral of the Mess. I sprinkled it with rosemary and love. It was delicious.

Judy Gruen’s books include “The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith.”