Marriage Lesson in the Kitchen

I love cooking with a Dutch oven, a large ceramic pot that can be used on the stove top or go straight in the oven. It’s gets even more use during a cold winter like the one we are experiencing this year. Recently I scorched the bottom of my favorite pot while cooking Bolognese for several hours on the stove. We did what we do when this happens, we let it soak, then scraped it and let it soak some more. No luck. The ceramic finish was coming off and I needed a big pot for the next recipe, so we consulted an expert.

We went to the Le Creuset store and asked if anything could be done for my beloved pot. We were told that with the finish coming off, we were too late, and needed to purchase a new one. Here is the point to this story: the cookware pro told us how to avoid ruining the next Dutch oven. She said that we should never place the pot on high heat, it is meant to be started at a low temperature and gradually moved up to medium, but if it gets too high it will not come down from the heat and it ruins the pot. As she was saying these words, I started thinking of a couple that often falls into a bad habit of name calling, accusations and yelling at each other. The two love each other and want to get it right, but allow themselves to heat up quickly and then they cannot come down to simmer. All reason leaves the room and the relationship for a time, declarations are made that are damaging, accusations that are mean and ridiculous, and they are left with a big mess to clean up.

I hope the couple can learn the value of intentionally keeping the temperature lowered when tensions arise instead of giving in to the short-term desire to unleash rage on each other. Because if this happens too many times, the couple could determine that it’s too late, the finish has worn off, and be tempted to throw out this relationship and invest in another, probably without learning the secret to keeping the heat on low to begin with.

Here’s the Bolognese recipe that killed my pot, I’ve made it several times in the new one with no issues: https://howsyourlovelife.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/rigatoni-bolognese/#more-5218