Introducing Husband to Vegetables...One at a Time
by Mary Leonard

In all of his baby books, Dr. Spock, the guru of my child-rearing decade, always suggested introducing vegetables one at a time in case baby became allergic or colicky. I haven't read Dr. Spock in 25 years, and he certainly was not a guide for "raising" my husband, but I understand that new books have arrived on the scene about how to feed your husband, which tells me that not all spouses enter marriage with gourmet credentials.

Thirty-five years ago, no guide existed for introducing grown men to vegetables. However, I instinctively knew that canned peas and iceberg lettuce had to go. My husband grew up in the Midwest where fresh corn was a given but iceberg lettuce and canned vegetables were a norm. At Jerry's first Christmas celebration at my home in the East, he had to leave the room while my family ate artichokes. He found a group of adults scraping vegetable matter off leaves disgusting.

So with no surprise, artichokes were not the first exotic vegetable I introduced. Asparagus. Yes, asparagus, which I considered quite an immediate breakthrough. I bought them that first spring, and steamed them. He agreed to taste and became enamored but ate only the tips, which left me with a batch of stems. I didn't see it as sacrifice, but as satisfaction.

Salads switched quickly to romaine or leaf lettuce, although he still balked at my inclusion of arugula, chicory or any bitter green. His taste buds had not advanced that far. However, as we tried different ethnic foods, it was easier for him to digest stronger and less likeable vegetables like broccoli and cabbage. In fact, stir fried broccoli with garlic sauce moved to the top of the must-haves, along with Vietnamese summer rolls with cabbage and bean sprouts.

Speaking of sprouts: brussel sprouts, that much maligned vegetable, has become my husband's latest craving. He's always urging me to buy them when they are in season. I make them very simply: steam quickly and salt. It's that deadly boiling and overcooking that kills cruciferous vege-tables.

But I don't want to make my husband seem like a gourmand. Some vegetables are still on the big rejection list: eggplant, squash and sweet potatoes, for three. I can't even sneak them into curries. And capers--are they a vegetable? Anyway, in his mind they are rabbit turds.

Meanwhile, Jerry has become very judgmental about his vegetables. Now, when he goes out to eat while visiting his native Midwest, he damns all those iceberg salads and instead demands romaine from the restaurant's secret backroom stash.

Although the no-no list is still long, and I don't think we have reached 35 new vegetables--one for each year of marriage--I have successfully served sea bass over a bed of sauteed fennel and tentatively introduced a wilted spinach salad. And of course he has made the ultimate breakthrough. He's in love with artichokes: steamed, stuffed, cold or hot. I smile while watching him blithely scraping vege-table scum off leaves.