That's the Good Stuff

McClendon Studios Presents:

That’s the Good Stuff

Kenny Chesney sings a song called That’s the Good Stuff.  In this song, he talks about when a man and a woman first get married. He eats burnt supper the whole first year and asks for seconds to keep her from tearing up.  That’s the good stuff.

Suzanne and I had been married just a few months, maybe not even that long.

She loved to cook and she loved to try new recipes.  Her cooking was always pretty good.  There was an instance when my brother came over for supper.  All was going well.  Suzanne had cooked country fried steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes and gravy. 

Suzanne apologized several times for the gravy being a little thick. Sometime during the meal, my brother holds out his plate and says, “Slice me off some of that gravy there, Suzanne.”  We all got a laugh.  The meal tasted great.  Just the gravy was a little thick.

One day, Suzanne found a recipe for herbed livers.  Now, we had bought her a very vast assortment of herbs and spices.  Unfortunately, we had overlooked most of the ones she needed to cook this recipe. 

We lived in the small town of Iva, South Carolina.  Iva had a grocery store and it had some herbs and spices, but not any of the more exotic ones.  So, Suzanne decided to wing it.  She substituted a little of this and a little of that. She was still cooking when I came in from work.

I sat down at the table and she brought me this big plate of Herbed Chicken Livers. It looked and smelled great.  She had also cooked green beans and rice.  She had to finish cooking the last of the livers before she sat down. She told me to go ahead and start eating before my supper got cold.  So, I did.

I took one bite of my liver and tasted something that I had never tasted before. To say it tasted bad would be an understatement. It was terrible.

If you have ever seen the movie For Richer For Poorer when Tim Allen first tastes the heart, lung, and kidney casserole, the look on Tim’s face was roughly the way I felt on the first bite.

But, I knew that she had tried so hard and would be devastated if I did not eat it.  Besides, surely she had tasted one of them so far, so she must have liked it.

I worked my way through the livers.  I had discovered that if I cut them small enough I could swallow them without chewing them. This way I did not have to taste them for very long.

I had gone through about three or four glasses of tea. Suzanne asked me from the kitchen, “How are they?”  I was honest and answered her, “I don’t think I ever tasted anything quite like this before.”

She brought in the remainder of the livers and noticed that I had almost finished mine.  She gave me a huge second helping and sat down. She said, “I just love to watch you eat.”

Now, I had to chew it because she was in the room watching me eat. She took one bite of hers and spit it out.  She said, “That is the nastiest thing I have ever tasted.  Did you really like them?”  Now, it is fess up time. I said, “You have cooked better meals in the past.”

We decided to go out to dinner that evening. Before we went, I put the remaining livers down for Cuddles the cat to eat.  They were still there when we got back. 

Visit My Child-Bride Suzanne’s Blog

Watch This on YouTube