Love Is a Fish Dinner

How do you know you are married to the Best Husband Ever? When he surprises you by making dinner, complete with marinated herbed tilapia and sauteed veggies -- and he generally dislikes both herbs and cooked vegetables.

Even though I'm supposed to be a healthy foodie, I could never make my peace with cooking meat. It's hard enough for me to throw frozen chicken breasts into a crock-pot with some sauce and seasonings. From childhood I've harbored an intense and irrational fear of salmonella transmitted by contact with raw eggs and meat. The simple act of opening a bag of frozen chicken is troublesome for me. And forget fish. Even though I have cooked raw fish before, it still scares me. Usually, the closest I come to "cooking" fish is opening a can of tuna and mixing it with other flavors.

Not so the Best Husband Ever, though. He is definitely the fish-maker of the family. The cooking conquistador of the oceanic chase! The master of the marinade! The superhero of the sautee! I'll stop there -- but seriously, his fish dishes are amazing. And I don't really like fish. Take the Valentine's Day tilapia of 2009, or his new-house halibut. The guy's amazing when it comes to a slab of fish, and what makes his skills even cooler is the fact that he never uses a recipe. He's a freestyle fish-maker.

All that say . . . I was excited when he announced on Friday afternoon that he had some tilapia marinating in the fridge. Yesterday night he stuck the dill-topped tilapia in the oven and sauteed some bell pepper and cucumber strips while the fish was baking. The Best Husband Ever says that he had a little accident with the dill, spilling more than he had planned over the fish, but I thought it was perfect. Even sweeter still, my avowed herb-hater of a husband took the allegedly over-dilled pieces for himself. What a good man.