Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Dinner is Served

"This month you have been way too critical of my cooking." My wife told me yesterday.
"Honey, I love your cooking, what are you talking about?" I replied.
"I think its this whole month of integrity, you are taking it too seriously- all of the sudden you are telling me all of the meals you don't like."
"Look, I am amazed by your cooking- I just thought we could start diferentiating between which meals are good and which meals are great." I careful explained.
"That's the problem, you never told me before you disliked any of my meals- and suddenly I'm hearing about all of them- if you had told me in the first place I would have stopped making them!"

So the month of integrity is almost over, but it hasn't been without it's challenges. My wife and I decided on a star system for dinners. 1-10 stars, 10 stars for the GREAT meals, 1 for the meals I cook. (I know what you guys are thinking- I should be grateful for ANY meal, and I am. Natalie just wants to know which are my favorites.) This is the perfect system, if there is a meal I don't like at all, I don't have to insult it with a "1", I can just give it a 4.5- and Natalie will realize it's on the low end and make it only when I am out of town.

Here is a list of some of my wife's best dinner's. If you want the recipe's I'm sure she would be happy to provide them:

  • Crocpot Mac n Cheese
  • Chicken enchiladas
  • Thai Chicken Curry
  • Chicken Rolls
  • Taco Soup
  • Secret Ingredient Tomato Soup
  • Roast Beef with mashed potatoes and gravy

BOOK UPDATE:

This morning I had a phone call meeting with Jennifer Garbowski from Krupp Komunications. She is an amazing publicist that works for the same firm that made the South Beach Diet famous. She gave me some great ideas for potential publishers and for ways of marketing my manuscript. She loves the idea, and thinks it has some serious potential.

We agreed that I have one large challenge ahead of me to getting published- for those of you that do not know me very well...I am NOT famous. I have tried to convince people otherwise, but its the truth. I haven't climbed Mt. Everest, run multiple marathons, or been on a spaceship. The big challenge will be to show that my book concept is so innovative that it will succeed even without a big name behind it. This is the challenge of all first time writers, and as my wife and I learned from the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" which we watched last night- life is often a beauty concept, and you need to be glamorous or famous to get noticed.

Here is where I could use some help. If anybody would like to learn about the 12 Hidden Virtues, and would like to commit one year to trying out my concept, email me at atdayton@gmail.com Good and bad experiences can be posted on my blog (with your permission of course).

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for making me feel better. Since you weren't home tonight we had grilled cheese sandwiches. Bet you're glad you missed this meal. It was about a 2.

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  2. we have the same rating system. Anything that doesn't score a 6 or higher means not to make it ever again. 7 means maybe you can make it on occasion when we need variety and 8,9,& 10 mean make it often! And I would love the Thai chicken recipe.

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