Saturday I had plans to go down to Wendy's house and hang out with her and the kids all night. When we first discussed the plans, I had mentioned maybe we should grab some pizzas and junk food while we watched season 10 of Friends. [Sidenote - Friends is the greatest show ever.] When I called her Saturday afternoon to make plans for the pizza she told me she had actually decided to make Chicken Spaghetti for us for dinner.
When I got there, she was in the kitchen a little stressed out because the chicken was in the pressure cooker and it had been done about 15 minutes but the pressure cooker lid hadn't released yet. 30 minutes later, the stress level had risen considerably... the chicken was still stuck in the pressure cooker. Wendy had ran cold water over it, made sure it was completely depressurized, had a strong teenage boy try to force it off, etc. She had even reheated the whole thing and started the process over. More prying by multiple people, more soaking in cold water, trying to clean all the seals with vinegar in case some trapped food had caused the problem. The picture above is obviously Wendy trying to pry the seal loose with a knife. Over an hour into the whole "chicken is stuck" incident and Wendy was pretty upset that she has ruined dinner. The spaghetti noodles had been sitting on the stove for an hour now and the whole meal still needed to bake in the oven to melt some cheese over it. I kept trying to tell her it was okay, no big deal, kind of funny actually. But then she said "I wanted to do something nice for you and I can't even do it right." And even though I didn't think I could ever love her more... hearing her say all this trouble and stress is because she was doing it for me totally made me love her more than I thought possible.
And then 5 minutes later (1 hour, 20 minutes in) she gave up on the pressure cooker. That's when I stepped over to the sink and actually got my hands on it for the first time. I had been asking her if I could help the whole time, but her & Kyle were doing all the right things so I hadn't forced them to let me try. Now this next part of the story is not me bragging. I'm just stating the facts. It took me about 30 seconds to get the lid off the pressure cooker.
It was the best meal I've ever had. Partly because it was so obviously made with love and partly because we all worked hard to get it accomplished.
Too funny!
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