what’s the newdeal?

This is not a food blog. This is a love story.

The main characters are interesting: a couple of aging hippies named Michael and Kathy, who meet through online dating. The angle: they live about 350 miles apart and have to drive to see each other on weekends. After a year of dating like this, they decide to get married.

Kathy’s co-workers and friends arrange a wedding shower, to which Michael is also invited. It’s a great party, full of laughter, tears, and (of course) plenty of food – but two of the shower gifts would change Kathy’s and Michael’s lives forever.

The first gift was wonderfully thoughtful: a personalized wooden recipe box filled with recipe cards. Some of the cards were blank while others had been filled in with recipes provided by Kathy’s friends and co-workers.

The second gift was an apron with a customized graphic on the front. Based on the photograph below, Kathy’s and Michael’s reactions to this gift were somewhat different:

But check out the graphic on the apron. The title on the design says it all. (August 3, 2008 was the date of Michael and Kathy’s wedding.)

So how can a box of recipes and an apron with a customized graphic change a couple’s lives? By reminding them of the subject of this love story: their lifelong love of food and how that love has ruled their lives, both separately and together.

Like any love story, there are ups and downs. You’ll hear all about those, and about those still, present moments which happen in between. You’ll also find out how we – Kathy and Michael – will share the gifts we received that day, now so many years ago.

We’re just shortening the title on the apron a little bit, and setting the action in the kitchen.

That’s the newdeal.