I am so excited I have a day off and can speak with you guys without having to just pop in during breaks and can speak with you at my leisure! There is no place I'd rather be than here with you guys.
I have a story.
A young woman, newly married, was having her mother-in-law over for dinner. She was very nervous, as she wanted the woman to like and accept her. She fussed over what she would serve. She discussed a menu for days with her husband, who kept saying, you're a wonderful cook, whatever you decide to make, my mother will love it!
The evening came, and the MIL arrived very early. This flustered the young woman, but she got the MIL a drink and sat her at the kitchen table so they could talk while she got the roast ready to put in the oven.
She got out her roasting pan, removed the meat from the wrapper, cut off the end of the roast and threw it in the trash, popped the roast in the oven and set the timer.
She sat down at the kitchen table and the MIL had a confused look on her face, and she said, dear, why did you cut off the end of the roast and throw it in the trash...? The daughter in law replied, because that's the proper way to cook a roast...
Well, a great argument ensued, with the MIL thinking the young woman made no sense and was wasting her son's hard earned money. And the young woman thought the MIL was a pushy control freak who had no idea of the correct way to cook a roast.
When the son (and husband) came home from work, he was miserable. Here were the two women he loved most in the world and he didn't know where all of the tension had come from that was between them, but it broke his heart.
After dinner, he told his mother which room they had prepared for her to sleep in but she announced that she didn't want to put them to any trouble and had got a hotel room. He said he would drive her but she said she had called a cab to come and get her.
The cab arrived, there were tense and cold pleasantries exchanged and the MIL left.
The wife immediately told her husband the whole story and fumed over the rudeness of his mother toward her.
The husband asked, well...why is the end of the roast cut off before cooking?
His wife couldn't answer that except to insist that she knew it was just the correct way to cook a roast. And then, she and her husband had tension between them and the young woman was even more distraught.
She called her mother to cry on her shoulder about the disastrous dinner and her mean MIL.
After her mother heard the whole story, she said, but dear, why did you cut off the end of the roast and throw it away...?
The daughter said...because that's the way YOU always did it so I just knew it was correct!
The mother laughed and said, oh no...I remember! When you were little, I had one roasting pan, a small one. The roast would never quite fit, so I would cut off the very tip so it would not hang over and drip juice and grease onto the bottom of the oven!
