[as far as i know, jonathan franzen has the last word on revenge cooking , in his terrifically amusing chronicle of the crazed y2k era, The Corrections.]
my wife sometimes is a miserable ogre, god love her, it's all part of the sugar&spice female mystique, they'll bite your head off one moment and then give you orchid soft head the next, there's no way to explain these platypussian factory-seconds of the great evolutionary toyota factory, sometime you just gotta live with em because you'd shrivel up and die if you couldn't.
that said, however, when their inner menstrual-monster has grabbed the subcortical control room, approach that dinner table with the same sort of trepidation exhibited by bomb squad rookies. you will eat what is put in front of you: like an execution, there are a few certainties. you will eat all of it: otherwise it wb hysterically flung to floor accompanied by shrill recitation of the time you made a play for that trailer trash bimbo who was here to care for the baby, your own son, how could you do such a thing? don't try saying, honey, honey, that was six weeks ago, it's all in the past: no, get down on the floor like the craven dog you are and lick up that meal pottery shards and all.
how to make a revenge meal
-----------------
liver and onions, of course, are staples, but why not branch out to moosewood territory?
3 cups each bulghar, kasha, lentils, yentils, yak genitals
one onion the size of a basketball
fish emulsion juice, no pulp
2 cups crushed gallstones from a non-genetically modified elk
2 lbs bad bad sashimi off the al's seafood reduced rack
goy sauce to taste
flounce up the grains, whee, all around the bowl, put em in a blazingly hot pot with like 1/32 teaspoon of some low quality cooking oil. beat down the yentils, sploof up the gentials.
throw in the onion. yes, you could mince it within an inch of its life, but who the fuck cares, this is a revenge meal. your family needs to know who runs the joint. while you're at it, throw in everything, mash it with a mallet, sprinkle on some more goy sauce and perhaps some calicium chloride walkway deicer.
you could stir it around; you could turn the heat down to low: but what has anyone ever done for you? take a break, go watch springer. you'll know it's ready when the whole house fills with smoke.
shrilly call out the word 'dinner' as if you were announcing an air-raid. run around the house grabbing people by the ear and drag them to their slop. now for the grace:
in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, bless this food which some of us cut burn and ruin our health preparing for ungrateful swine who should just all be taken outside and butchered right now, amen.
slop it all around, giving the most to those who eat the least. give a real time blow-by-blow account of what a miserable fucking day you had. ask children if they been brushing teeth and what about proper ass-wiping, sheesh, you're all gonna be in college someday still wiping from the front.
if husband dares speak, immediately breakdown in tears. not the trailer trash bimbo issue again: oh yes, buster, and don't think i won't brain you with the frying pan again, so far i haven't seen an improvement.
little pip cries out, mommy, i'm going to vomit. that's okay, you say kindly, just lean over your plate, mommy's gonna make you eat it all back again.
suddenly, a ray of sunshine shafts through your dark mood: kids, dad, if you're members of the clean plate club, there's ben & jerry's ice cream for dessert. like prizefighters given new life by having swollen eyes lanced, your family makes a game attempt to consume pre- and post-vomit revenge meal sustenance.
halleluja, the clean plate club is triumphant! however, seems the ben & jerries fell behind a radiator when the babysitting bimbo was defending her honor: she may have been a no-good homewrecking floozie, but she sure knew how to hurt an insanely jealous harridan like you. yes, it's true, ben & jerries is nothing but moldy glue.
so, umm, kids, daddy, who's cleaning up this mess? mommy's got a migraine coming on, i simply must go lie down. i hope someday you all appreciate how i suffer for your happiness. a woman's work is never done, oh, isn't it the truth. if anyone should happen to check, if you see i'm not breathing why don't you just give a phone call the valium overdoes hotline.