More about "the man in my life"!

One of the things that I failed to mention in yesterdays blog is Cappy's likes and dislikes! Not too many dislikes! When we were first married he had a lot of trouble with his stomache. He said that he had been told that he had stomache ulcers and began to tell me what he could eat and what he couldn't. Seems he had been to a Dr. sometime in his teens who had given him a bunch of tests and found that milk was one thing he could not drink. He said that it felt like the minute it hit his stomache it would feel like it was boiling and made him very sick! Well, I don't like milk and never did so that posed no problem. He could eat things such as gravy or creamed vegetables where the milk was boiled. I never thought much about his ulcers and so I just cooked like I always had at home. Potatoes, gravy, a cooked vegetable and sliced tomatoes, or cole slaw, or lettuce salad, etc. He didn't seem to get any "attacks" of stomache ulcers. But one time after we were married he did get a terrible attack and they were bleeding ulcers. He would during one of these attacks just stay away from food and when he got to feeling better, fix up for himself a big Mexican dinner! And hot as it was, it never bothered him!!! He loved the Mexican food and started to show me how to fix it! I had never ever come close to Mexican food unless it was a big pot of Chili con Carne, made with just good old red beans and then tomatoes, chili pepper, (canned), onion a bit of garlic salt or powder, etc. It was a pretty good dish when I had it in the cold Northwest where I lived as a girl. One ate this concoction with soda crackers on a cold wintry night! Well, after tasting Cappy's Mexican food including Chili, and most of the time without the carne, (meat) I was hooked for life! My Mother and Father got so they liked it too and in fact, Cappy started doing most of the cooking on weekends when we had company!I don't know how he made it taste so special but everyone who has ever tasted his tacos, Cnili Colorado, green chili, tamales, and other Mexican dishes, and the rice and beans that went with them swear that he had a "secret" ingredient that he put in them when no one was looking!!! I think the ingredient was love of Mexican food and his love of cooking!!! I have tried all my life since his death to make things taste like he did but....! When a couple of my kids were married, we put on a feast of home-made tamales for them for their rehearsal dinner and at their request!!! I learned how to make tamales and it was a job doing them from scratch but we bought all our ingredients from a Mexican store, even the "masa" that was the cornmeal filling! Of course, Cappy "doctored" it up so it was pliable, etc. He made a wonderful dish with chicken. He boiled up the chicken and then made the sauce which included, chocolate, cloves, etc. I could positively eat that all night!!! The Mexican name escapes me at the moment! (One of those senior moments!)He had a ball doing the cooking. He was a wonder at the backyard Barbeque too. His barbecued chicken was famous too. As you can see, I was pretty spoiled with him doing so much of the cooking, even though I was told by more than one in the family that I was a "Great" cook! My potato salad always went over big although I never ate a bite of it, but Cappy tested it out and could et tons of it!!! So all my kids grew up loving Mexican food except Steve and he told me one day after he was married, "I wish I had tried Dad's cooking! Everybody tells me I don't know what I missed!" Yes, Steve, you would have loved it as much as the rest of the family!!! Goodnight!