One word you won’t read in my obituary is “gourmet.” Not that I have anything against fine foods and good wines; it’s just that I’m content with meat and potatoes. Or casseroles.

Or pizza. Or cheeseburgers.

I wasn’t aware that people ate fancier foods until I was a teenager. By then I was hooked on Mom’s meat and potatoes home cooking which, by the way, I’ll put up against any other in the Midwest.

Shortly before I left home, I foolishly began to tire of Mom’s cooking. Restaurant menus seemed more exciting. I’ll never forget the first time I visited my parents after leaving home. The finest chefs in Europe could not have prepared a more delicious meal than my mother did that evening.

During the years between the time I left home and got married, I survived on bachelor grub. Cheap ground beef was my friend. A half-pound of the stuff formed into a lump-like patty and fried medium well, served on two slices of toasted bread and several thickly cut slices of Velveeta™ was quite filling. A pint of ice cream made an easy dessert. I washed it all down with a large bottle of cola.

Marriage saved me from a life of greasy cheeseburgers. My first wife, Cindy, was a good cook and she broadened my culinary horizons. (That wasn’t all her cooking broadened.) Except for the times she tried some weird casserole recipes from a friend who (thankfully) moved away, my tastes and appetite meshed with her cooking just fine.

After Cindy passed away, God blessed me with a lovely wife, Julie, who is also a good cook. Her homemade lasagna is magnifico! Let it be known that I have not lost any weight in the nearly 11 years since we married.

You should know that I’m a modern kind of guy who is willing to help in the kitchen occasionally. I can make a mean cheeseburger, a delicious dish of baked beans and with an accompaniment of chopped wieners and I can even serve a rotisserie chicken from Costco.

Over the years I have had an opportunity to experience many different foods. I even tried escargot one evening. I found it was harder to get the little boogers out of their shell than it was to get them down. To be honest, a basket of deep-fried chicken gizzards would be better any day.

The fanciest meal I’ve ever eaten made me sick. Well, not literally, but the bill did make my stomach ache. I was attending a regional newspaper conference in Chicago when a group of us decided to go out for dinner (it was actually supper but we were in Chicago) one evening. One of the fellows recommended a fine Italian restaurant on Michigan Avenue.

I should have known I was in trouble the instant I walked in the door. The place looked more like a funeral home than a restaurant. Even though I couldn’t understand the menu and barely understood the waiter, the dinner (I think it was veal) was delicious.

The sour stomach set in when we got the bill. We split the check evenly and each man’s share was $45. In 2025 dollars that’s $134. All I could think of was how many cheeseburgers or pizzas that would buy back home. Thankfully, I was on an expense account.

When I moved to southwest Iowa I learned a brain sandwich was considered by some to be quite a delicacy. I had lived there for more than a year before I built up the courage to try one. While my dining partner wolfed down what appeared to be a delicious hot beef sandwich, I tried to consume deep fried brains served on a bun.

You are free to draw your own conclusions here, but I couldn’t finish the sandwich. Brains just aren’t for me. Thankfully, the restaurant had a nice selection of homemade pies so I didn’t go away hungry.

As I said, the word “gourmet” will not appear in my obituary. Perhaps after listing my survivors, my church affiliation and my love of writing the obit will state, “He was a gourmand.” That’s a person who enjoys eating and often eats too much.

To paraphrase Will Rogers, “I’ve seldom met a meal I didn’t like.”

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2025 by Huisman Communications.