The way to a man's heart is through his stomach

This old quotation has quite many variations. Adrienne E. Gusoff says: ” Any woman who thinks the way to a man's heart is through his stomach is aiming about 10 inches too high. “ Not true in our family, I quote instead: “A way to get things done is through my husband’s stomach”. On Sundays there is always a lot to do fixing the house or the garden but this doesn’t particularly have my husband’s interest. Fortunately he loves food.

“Honey (=my husband when I want him to do something), can you please clean the garage.”
“Sorry, too busy with the newspaper.”
“Okay, I will do it, but then I don’t have time to make dinner. We will have hotdogs.”
“And if I clean the garage?”
“Then I will make coque au vin.”

The water is already running out of his mouth. He gets up from the couch.
“How about some vitello tonnato first ?” he asks.
“Okay, if you vacuum clean the car.”

I start cooking, but my husband comes soon back from the garage and asks if we could have gambas al ajillo as appetizer. I agree to it if he moans the lawn. “Okay, and if I also cut the hedge, will you then make pissaladiere ?”. I go along with that, too.

Between the garage cleaning and lawn moaning my husbands puts his head in the kitchen.
“You will make some salad, won’t you?”
“Of course I will make salad, but just a plain green salad”.
“How about a salade au chevre chaud?”
“Hm, then you have to paint the storage room.”

Off he goes, but is soon back.
“How about dessert? Tarte aux pommes et mascarpone?”
I can’t really think about more things getting done, so I say:
“Okay, then I want to have sex tonight.”
Now my husband is very troubled, gosh, he must really think over this one. But I could have saved lives of millions of Jews if Hitler had tasted my Tarte aux pommes et mascarpone, so he agrees to have sex that night.

When we finally make it to the dinner table, we are both totally exhausted. I have been cooking the whole day and my husband has been working as a horse (though I haven't seen a horse working since I was little). Now he is eating like a horse (this I see every Saturday when my daughter goes to horseback riding), and in the end of the dinner we both fall asleep at the table. Our children try to take us to bed, but of course they can’t. But being good kids, they brush our teeth while we are hanging on our chairs.

When I wake up in the morning, my whole body is aching after spending a night in a chair, but I am smiling anyhow. I might not have gotten real sex (approx. 10 seconds), but what does it matter when I have George (approx. 3 hours) ?