Whoever said, "Real men don't eat quiche" was cooking on the wrong burner. The truth of the matter is that real men don't eat casseroles.
"What's that?" my husband almost gagged one day, when as a newlywed bride, I put the finishing touches on a casserole recipe I'd torn from a magazine in my doctor's office."King's Ransom," I said, sprinkling a final handful of grated cheese over a filled Pyrex baking pan. "It's a wonderful combination of canned salmon, mushrooms and homemade noodles."
"Sounds great!" he exclaimed in his I'm trying very hard to be tactful voice, "But would you mind whipping up some mashed potatoes and maybe broiling a little steak just in case that (shudder) concoction doesn't fill me up?"
Six months later when I fixed something called Captain's Cuisine, my husband wasn't quite so kind.
"Looks more like Ship Wreck!" he quipped. Being a nice guy, though, he said he'd try it anyway with a little ketchup on the side. But when a little ketchup on the side turned out to be a whole bottle on the top, I knew I'd better not serve that dish again.
Twenty years later, he doesn't even ask what's cooking. If he comes in the kitchen and sees me grating cheese, he calls out for pizza, claiming his stomach can't handle anything smothered with cheddar, mozzarella or Monterey Jack unless it comes from Domino's.
His stomach (the same organ that has no trouble accommodating half a gallon of extra spicy jalapeno dip in combination with five pounds of tortilla chips) gets queasy when I even look like I'm going to fix a main dish containing mixtures of meat and vegetables with rice, pasta or white sauce.
Quite frankly, I tell him, his objection to one-dish meals is ridiculous since everything you eat gets mixed up anyway and not nearly so aesthetically as when combined with cream of chicken soup.
He counters by saying that if God wanted men to eat casseroles, Pyrex baking pans would grow on trees.