Somewhere pigs are flying! I actually got a wonderful surprise today! First some background: I am currently living in Japan. My husband is Japanese. Most Japanese housewives go grocery shopping everyday. In order to get the best deals on prices, my husband stops by some larger supermarkets on the way home from his work. Every afternoon, I send him a list and he picks it up. For 7 years now, I have been trying to convince my husband for us to buy butter instead of margarine. He always comes back with the cost difference, butter costs ¥400 and margarine only costs ¥200. The few times that I went ahead and bought butter, he royally complained for the rest of the month. This weekend, I asked him again to change to butter. Then, he picked up his iPhone and started seriously reading something. He then asked me if I had ever heard of bargarine. When I answered no, he frowned. I have no idea what that article he was reading said, but it must have convinced him. Today, he brought home butter. Real butter! I asked him why. He told me that from now on we would be buying butter. Then he said, did you know that margarine is artificial food? I could barely contain myself from showing how delighted I was, but I decided to just smile and say thank you to him. Hey, I get to use butter now instead of margarine, so I decided to just let go of what I was thinking.
So, tell me if you see the flying pigs!
Question 1: Do you have a funny story about trying to convince your partner something and then actually getting what you wanted even though you never expected it would ever happen?
Question 2: Which is it for you, butter or margarine? And why?
If you leave a dish of margarine out in the woods/prairie/riverbank, etc., there's not a wild animal that will touch it!
Butter for us. At least it's real. :)
Ah, yes. Thank God for Google, now husbands can SEE IN PRINT what their wives have been telling them all along! If it's on the INTERNET it MUST be true! If YOU say it, not so much.
:(
Butter...no artificial foods for us. My husband has gone one better and now wants organic butter (work THAT one into your grocery budget).
My story isn't really funny...but our daughter fell and I was convinced her leg was broken. He told me I was totally over reacting. So I held off through the weekend and took her to the pedi on Monday. It was broken. She was in a cast three weeks and he bowed to the correctness of "mother's intuition".
When we found out we were expecting baby #3, which really wasn't a surprise AT ALL, my husband started worrying a lot. He was so concerned that #3 was going to be a disaster. #3 is now 19 mos old and is proving himself to be the pick of the litter ;-) Every time my husband tells me how smart/sweet/lovable/funny etc our baby is, I just smile and say, "And you were so worried about him!"
For us? Butter, if we must have it. Otherwise, for sauteeing I use grapeseed oil, and for baking I tend to use either sour cream, plain Greek yogurt, or applesauce in place of butter.
Funny! And, . When I was pregnant with my 3rd child, a girl, I saw the name Isabel and decided I absolutely loved it and wanted that for her name. I was dead set on it and my husband was like, "sure, whatever floats your boat." Then at one point he told me "I don't love it, let's look at other names." I was really mad because I was so set on THAT name. So I pretty much shut down and stopped looking at baby names and we did not discuss it further for a long while. Then one day he excitedly says, "Guess what, I found the perfect name for our baby...Isabel!" Oh, thanks hun! You saved the day by coming up with that one! LOL.
And, butter is better for you. At least you know what is in it.
Q 1: Every time the weather is an issue for our kids. I tend to err on the side of just being prepared. So what if you have to tie that jacket around your waist, at least you have it if it gets chilly. ...and I'm always right. Hats, gloves, rainboots. I rarely have been wrong about this. And my lovely, caring husband is shivering in his t-shirt. I've learned never to say 'told you so'. Just hearing, "Mommy was right, kids. We DO need these gloves!" is enough.
Q 2: Butter. It just tastes better.
When we first married we took a short road trip to California. I packed my usual, lap blanket, pillow, 6 pack cooler, and bag of treats mostly for my daughter. Hubby looked at me so annoyed and said your taking all of that, were just going to L.A. I said yep. Anyway, we got on the road and I was driving and it wasn't long before his hand was in the backseat getting into the drinks and treats, until they were GONE. Then it was nap time and he took the blanket off my sleeping daughter and slowly slid the pillow out from under her head, reclined the seat and took a nap!
Butter because I prefer the taste, but I hear margarine is umm, synthetic.
We use butter. I read somewhere that margarine was found when someone was trying to make gun grease. Been a butter user ever since. Even in baking, I just buy it in bulk and freeze it.
1)My kitchen is tiny. The appliances are vintage. The oven can barely fit a cookie sheet...and would burn the cookies anyway.
2)My husband's family members are foodies. We usually have 3 different types of dressing, a massive turkey, there are easily 15 different things on the table all made from scratch. MIL and 2 SILs cook the meal together, I stay out of their way. It's usually up at MIL's place, NOT ours.
My husband wanted to host Thanksgiving this year. In our tiny kitchen. Somehow, the reality of that impending disaster didn't occur to him. So a couple of nights ago, I had him "cook" dinner. Frozen fries from a bag to be baked in the oven, chicken cutlets (heated in the microwave, no less), frozen peas simply heated up and served. The kind of meal I could do blindfolded and about 1/100 the effort of a holiday meal. Oven burned the fries, chicken cutlets were dry and overdone by the microwave, everything else was simply ok and edible. His reaction? "Wow, that was really hard to cook that meal in this kitchen." MY reaction? "Dude, you wanted your mom and sisters to do THANKSGIVING in this kitchen! NOW do you get it?!" He got it.
And butter. Always. Where do you live in Japan, btw?
Butter only. Margarine is just chemicals.
