Kitchen Queen Abdicates
          by Lucy Greenburg

    The other day my husband bought a flour sifter. It wasn't good enough for him that in the Twenty-First Century flour comes pre-sifted. 

I told him, "The only thing you have to do these days is go to the store and pick up the bag marked "Pre-sifted".

"You're not taking into account the settling factor," he said. "Face facts. Flour needs aerating."

    "Whatever," I said, and flounced out of the kitchen like a sullen teenager. 

This is typical of the exchanges I've been having with my husband since he retired several months ago. No sooner had he shed his casual friday button-down shirt, his pressed khakis and his laminated employee I.D., than he burst forth as a born-again foodie, singing praises over seared venison medallions, shouting hallelujahs over pomegranate flambés, and speaking in tongues over salmon baked in parchment and stuffed with artichoke hearts. 

In a state of shock I watched the former IT Guy, who had spent the last thirty years staring at computer screens, morph practically overnight into my husband, Le Chef. Until that moment I never would have believed this apparently common phenomenon where new retirees embrace flamboyant, larger-than-life alter-egos.

Nor had I any idea of the in-house coup already underway to overturn my decades-long reign over the kitchen. True, as Kitchen Queen I was ambivalent, even resentful. A queen, however, is still a queen. 

And as a queen, I enjoyed my signature style. I "cooked" for my family using my preferred ingredients - which is to say anything edible that came in bags, boxes or cans. I leaned, cuisinarily-speaking, towards labels with words like "instant", "pre-washed", and (this was the best!) "pre-cooked". I efficiently wittled down recipe choices by applying a strict three-step, four ingredient maximum cut-off. Some nights in an extreme gesture of noblesse oblige, I simply waved my husband and kids to the fridge and instructed them to take out something from each of the major food groups.

All those years I thought my husband was happy - slightly malnourished, but happy. Why didn't I see the signs? Like the small vegetable garden he grew one summer. Was that his subtle way of protesting my habit of filling the FDA's daily vegetable quota with canned wax beans, frozen spinach or beets from jars? Was I naive in believing he enjoyed pickled cocktail onions just because I did?

I should have realized that rebellion was underfoot the first morning of my husband's retirement. Astonishinly, he did not shuffle around the house looking lost and bewildered, wondering where one went for coffee and Danish when company vending machines were no longer options. Instead he was up by 7 and out of the house by 8. 

Hours later, laden with grocery bags he reappeared. Practically babbling, he described his trip to the local supermarket as if it were an exotic journey to the Kasbah. Did I know that rosemary was an herb and that it came in something called "sprigs"? Had I realized that chopped meat wasn't the only form of red meat? "There are," he foamed, "at least a hundred other kinds of meat. I kid you not. There's something called tenderloin and brisket and ribeye."

Life began to change. Night after night I came home from work and there he was in the kitchen searing, deglazing, reducing, caramelizing, tenderizing, or practicing his knife skills on innocent celery stalks.

Soon my tuna casseroles and Hamburger Helper had been replaced by Canard aux Framboises, Coconut Custard Mahi-Mahi, qnd Chilled Avocado Soup. The night I took my first bite of his Mocha Tiramisu Brandy-Soaked Linzer Torte, I caved. Finally, I admitted aloud what I already knew in my heart. It was time to abdicate my throne.

So now I'm the one who's retired, so to speak. Perhaps I'll take up rug-hooking or join my local chapter of the Raging Grannies. For now I'll make myself comfy in the recliner and put on the news. Dinner's almost ready.