Cooking wth Dad: Lesson 1-- How to Boil Water

So it has come to my attention that with all this chatter about my mom here, my dad is feeling left out. In honor of Father's Day I will oblige, although he may come to regret it later.

My dad,  I have heard, used to cook with/for my mom in their early years of marriage. As the years progressed and my mom stayed home with her three extremely well behaved children, my dad stepped out of the role and my mom assumed more of the responsibility for food prep. You can call it chauvinist, I call it reality. As a stay at home mom myself, it just makes sense for me to make dinner, I have more time. It's true.

Now that my dad is working less and my mom is working more, he is cooking more again.
This balance shift took place over the last few years and when it first began he was a little... uhh... rusty.

My dad also has the tendency to get himself all hyped-up over his responsibilities. My dad is not the laid-back-roll-with-the-punches. He is the lets-get-this-done-now-so-I-can-get-back-to-watching-old-Westerns-on-TV kind of guy.
Early in our marriage Everette and I were over at my mom and dad's for dinner.  We were hanging out and when it came time for food prep, my dad had one job: boil the water for corn. Obviously it was the summer, because we only eat Green Wagon corn and we only eat in the summer.

Anyway, back to my dad, head chef, and chief water boiler. Before I go any further, I must say in my dad's defense, their stove is the worst stove on planet earth, and you could needlepoint a life-sized picture of the Statue of Liberty before you could boil water.

But I digress. As my mom set to work preparing the rest of dinner, my dad set to work slamming around the kitchen. My mother, after 30 years of marriage has learned, largely how to ignore my dad when he gets into hyper drive. So we continued talking, mostly oblivious to whatever my dad was doing.
Until my mother, quite involuntarily grabbed the large stock pot, brought it to the sink, filled it  up and returned it to the stove.
Seconds later, when my dad realized what she had done, he went from over-drive to rocket launcher mode (seriously, I think my dad could launch rockets with the energy he rams around with).
"what did you do that for!?!" he exclaimed out of frustration.
My mom, responded with apologies as most people would, after completely unintentionally upsetting some one.

My dad continued to overreact. I would compare it to a steam whistle. He wasn't rude or mean. He just had all this pressure built up from his flurry of activities that it just burst out when he opened his mouth.

As I watched him, I realized what he was doing and why he was upset...
My Dad, had  decided the fastest, most efficient, and best way to boil water for corn was to fill a one-quart microwave-safe bowl with water and nuke it for five mins and then dump it the large 3 gallon stock pot on the stove.  Then go to the sink and start over and rinse and repeat...

Let's just let that resonate for a bit...

And his frustration was  because my mother unknowingly poured 10 quarts of cold tap water into his two accumulated quarts of nuked warm water. Thus bringing him back to square one and rendering his intense water-heating efforts fruitless. You can feel the man's frustration.
I immediately started laughing , a deep gut busting laugh. With tears and side cramps, and hyperventilating breaths.

My mom quickly followed suit.

My dad, beginning to realize his folly but not ready to admit it quite yet, just stood there, his rocket booster energy dissipating.

My poor dad will never live it down no matter how many delicious dinners he makes. He can grill a steak, smoke a turkey, just please don't ask him to boil water.
Happy Father's Day, Dad!   I love you to pieces.

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