Spinach and White Bean Soup

If you would have told me five, maybe even two years ago that I would try something with the following ingredients, I would have told you that you're crazy:

white beans, red peppers, onions, and spinach

...but tonight, I did. And as one of my favorite comedians, Mitch Hedberg, said of the recipe for Sprite ("they say the recipe for Sprite is lemon and lime, but I tried to make it at home"): there's more to it than that.

Since we got married and especially since Meghan got her job with HealthCorps, she's done the majority of the cooking in our household, creating increasingly healthy and delicious meals. In the previous five years of our relationship, I was the culinary master, preparing such delicacies as "Rice-a-Roni" and "Spaghetti," real exotic stuff. Now, my piddly excuses for food are relegated to the nights when she's too tired to think of anything and I'm feeling especially helpful in the kitchen. Sure, it's still good, but I'd much rather have whatever she would feel like making... which after my long history of battling healthy food as a child, should come as quite the surprise.

I once famously refused a plate of peas (or carrots, depending on which version of the story you choose to believe, or, as some do, you may believe that they are two separate, yet very similar stories) all the way until bedtime. My Mom told me that I had to at least try them, that I would have to sit at the table until I did just that. I agreed. I would sit there as long as she wanted, but there was no way that I was going to subject myself to a sickeningly pale green vegetable (or orange, again, depending on your version of the story) when all I had to do was literally sit there until the clock struck "bedtime." I'm not sure which part of my heritage is more stubborn and determined: the Cherokee or the Coppage, but my ancestors' combined willpower allowed me to suffer through the night of staring disgustedly at the plate of eventually cold vegetables right until Mom finally came back and said in that classic Jennie Berry huff:

"Fine. Go get ready for bed."

Sweet victory. Several years later, we would face off yet again in another classic battle of wills, this time over the capitalistic tycoon board game, Monopoly, the two of us wearing each other down, hoping against all odds that we could grind the other's will into dust before the Microtel front desk called to tell us one more time to "keep it down for the sake of the rooms around you." On that night, the Force was stronger with her, and I succumbed to her powerful line of houses and hotels, sending me straight to the poorhouse.

My point is that, as a child, I really didn't want to try anything. And oftentimes? I didn't. I had a stubborn and determined nature when it came to food, and if I didn't want it, I wasn't going to eat it. But something happens when you get married, I believe, and that something, is that a new woman in your life, a woman that you love more than anything in this world, can change you. She can alter your reality and your perception to the point where you would do absolute anything for her.

Jump of a bridge? ... how high?

Money for shopping? ...as much as you want!

Try this Southwestern Egg Roll? ... um... uh... listen...

I'll admit that it didn't come easy at first. When Meghan first proposed some new things, she was a little ballsy. The Southwestern Egg Roll was like a slap in the face to the child within me still sitting at that dinner table in front of the plate of peas (or carrots). The way she suggested that I try it was so sweet and innocent, asking me as if I was a child: "Do you want to try this? No? OK... you don't have to if you don't want to, but it's really good... I think you'd like it... What don't you like about it?" She slowly picked apart my defenses and wore me down, smiling sweetly at me in this unnerving stare that made me almost certain that she was plotting something. She kept reassuring me that I didn't have to try it until the reverse psychology wore me so far down that I just snapped and said, "Fine! I'll try it!" I tentatively took a tiny, minuscule bite that could hardly be construed as a bite as far as those things go. Still, I tasted it. It was spicier than I expected... but not terrible. This made me angry. I wanted to hate it so bad, but I didn't. Little did I know that in that one, singular moment, she had unlocked the key to get me to try nearly anything, and she would use that advantage early and often in the war to make our lives healthier.

Soon enough I learned that not everything that's good for me tastes bad too. The two concepts are not counter-intuitive after all. Still, despite the fact that I now love red peppers and want them on nearly everything after not eating one for twenty-five years of my life, despite the fact that I said no more than two weeks ago that spinach, spinach really isn't bad at all and it doesn't taste too terribly different than lettuce apart from the crispiness; apart from all those things? She still tries to protect my food ego... She didn't tell me that there were onions in the soup tonight. She thought it might dissuade me from trying it. But deep down, she knew... She knew that all she had to do was ask in that syrupy sweet voice that hooked me like a siren, and I would try it without a second thought. And in the end? It's good for me. Mom was right all along.