Hubby's In Town This Week

My kitchen brings a pond like calm to my marriage. 

Hubby's job in Singapore handles regional responsibilities. So most business trips take hubby away during the week days. That means I'm often a Mrs during the weekends only, dishing out sumptuous food to romantically seduce his discerning taste buds. As I always say, "the test is in the taste".  And this keeps the fires of romance coursing through the veins of our marriage (we'll celebrate our fifth anniversary this year).

But once ever so often hubby will be in town for a full week. And that's when I celebrate having all that time with him by cooking up a storm in my delightful kitchen. And it's not just the dinner for two I'm talking about. Oh no. It's about the snacks he gets with his beer when he gets home in his nifty Alfa from work. Often I'll wet his appetite for dinner with his mother's greatest recipe - that's right, Necia's absolutely heavenly cheese biscuits: where the wholesome grated texture of the mature cheddar and the contrast given by the freshly crushed garlic granules shine through ever morsel he takes.

Other times, I'll whip up an assortment of liver pates as appetizers - although those made with chicken liver are his favourite. Some times it'll be laced with slivers of garden fresh orange rinds. Other times, delicate slices of granny smiths settle down with the clarified butter that settles on top of the smoothly textured pate.

And there'll also be jugs and jugs of freshly brewed cordials sitting in our trusty fridge - just in case hubby needs a refreshing palette cleansing drink after the clock strikes nine after dusk. If time isn't a luxury for me that week, I'll whip up something quick - like a traditional home made iced lemon tea and, for excellent contrast, an ice cold lemon lime (using the local kafka limes). And when I find that the time is mine to while away at leisure, I'll stir my brewing pot to pour forth some zesty lemon barley that's first destined for the fridge.

And to accompany his refreshing after nine drinks will be the best home made Anzac oatmeal cookies he has  ever tasted. And the secret is in the abundant crushed pistachios I add into the cookie mixture. Not those that come raw though. No, I use the ones roasted in salt. And that provides the best foil to the sweetness offered by the caster sugar in the biscuit dough.