For those who don’t know my sweet husband is kind of like alphabet soup. He is currently a CNA, EMT, and LPN. He will soon be an RN. A year after that he will most likely add a BSN, and he plans to go on to get either a DO, MD, or DNP. If you can’t tell already he’s in the medical profession and planning to stay in it. It’s a long haul, but it’s one that he loves and it’s very rewarding.
This all may seem pretty unrelated to soup, but it’s a necessary introduction if I’m going to tell you the story of what took place after one of his clinicals.
Hubby works hard, often going from school, to work, and back again. And no day does he work harder than on his clinical days. He has to drive 45 minutes to and from the hospital on top of an all day shift with very few breaks. For this reason – along with the fact that I seem to be infinitely more productive when he’s not home – I try to make dinner special on clinical days. I usually plan ahead and have it hot and ready for him when he gets home.
On this particular clinical day I decided I would pack up the baby in the stroller and walk a mile to the local Hispanic market in order to get some extra special (and on sale) ingredients. I marched to the market with three dollars in change rumbling in a stroller compartment. Once at the store I purchased two bollos (big rolls) and one seafood mix bag. These were all things I had purchased before with raving success.
When I got home I made what I lovingly like to call squid soup. It changes every time I make it, but it always has a Mexican seafood mix in it – basically a pre-maid bag of oysters, shrimp, squid tentacles (chewy but good), and fake crab. It took a lot of time and effort, but I was sure it was worth it as I smelled my creation.
Hubby got home after the mix had been simmering on the pot for two hours, just long enough to let the flavors really meld. We said our prayer, and sat down to eat as my hubby told me about his day in the operating room of the hospital. We both began to eat when hubby stopped and picked up something textured, green, and attached to a squid tentacle.
“That,” he said, “is an organ.” And he visibly swallowed back what I’m guessing was what he had already eaten of the soup.
“Just take it out, it was probably in there by mistake,” I told him. I guess the rest of this is pretty predictable. The super on sale seafood mix had more than just a few squid organs in it, and even though my hubby dutifully picked them out and ate his bowel of soup I was crushed. How selfish of me right? But I had spent SO much time and energy on that soup. The entire time I was walking home from the store I was envisioning my hubby’s delighted response to such a special and exotic meal. But after spending all day in the OR looking at live organs he just couldn’t stomach eating squid ones – not that I ate them either.
Over the course of the week I ate the rest of the left-overs myself knowing that my husband wouldn’t. I’m not gonna lie the squid organ soup was actually pretty tasty but man did I get sick of it. Still, I learned a couple of very important lessons. 1) Don’t buy seafood mix when it’s super on sale at a Hispanic marketplace and 2) if your hubby is kind of like alphabet soup don’t serve him organs of any kind – or else you will have to eat the left overs.
