Why I Blame Pot Roast for my Marriage

Despite an almost insurmountable lack of time and energy (not to mention an overwhelming desire to spend hours doing nothing but watching TV) Miriam Pedler has found herself to be a budding author. A full time Neuro-Developmental Specialist, part-time religious school teacher and an aspiring School Psychlogist, Miriam is currently working on completing the Bachelor’s Degree she was certain she would never need. In addition to avoiding writing, Miriam also enjoys avoiding cooking and is successful in this endeavor throughout the year with four glaring and delicious exceptions (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Passover.) She lives in NJ with her extremely patient and understanding husband, the world’s cutest son, 2 really cute stepdaughters, one ridiculously cute granddaughter and a not so cute turtle named Mr. Turtleheadface.

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I have an almost sinful relationship with meat. I know it’s not cool to be a meat eater nowadays, but I can’t help it. I just crave meat. I connect with it on a primal level. I figure, “hey, any recipe that calls for a great big hunk of beef is right up my alley.” So when I had to make my first adult meal to serve to my future mother-in-law, I knew that pot roast would prove that I was good enough to marry her son.

The thing about my pot roast is that it's a sort of microcosm of my life. It utilizes everything in the fridge, costs practically nothing, is super easy to make, looks like a big old mess, but is really delicious. Those were the qualities Tom loved about me (watch the super easy cracks, folks!) and I knew if I could make Jane see those things about me, she would love me too.

You see, Tom and I have each had a lot of history before we met. Tom was the divorced dad of a 4 year old and stepdad of a 12 year old, and went through a really ugly battle to extricate himself from an unpleasant situation. I was lost, alone and a complete mess when we met, but somehow we brought out something really amazing in each other. I never felt it necessary to prove myself to anyone before, but I just wanted Jane to feel safe in the knowledge that no one would be hurting her son ever again.

I had actually met Jane a few times, and she was everything I could wish for in a mother-in-law. She was laid back, full of love and completely accepting, which is why she never voiced her opinions to her son about her first daughter-in-law, a mistake I knew she would not make again. So I, her Jewish future daughter-in-law, decided to prove my love by making Christmas dinner.

Everyone knew that Thanksgiving was my thing. I roasted a heavenly turkey, made the most flavorful, aromatic stuffing, candied the meanest yams around and had the fluffiest mashed potatoes in the northern hemisphere. Honestly. But I couldn’t truthfully say that I was a Christmas dinner expert. I briefly considered doing the Christmas Ham thing, but I had never even gone so far as to touch one, so I figured it might make cooking to taste a bit more challenging. But a pot roast I could do. And if I cooked it in a crock pot, I could spend the day on the sides and wow her with my homemade onion bread. She would be completely convinced that her son would be well taken care of. (Perhaps he’d be a little pudgy, but he‘d still have someone to love him.) It had to be perfect, because I had to be perfect. This was way too important for me to screw up.

I researched pot roast recipes all day. I ransacked my cookbooks and recipe boxes and checked out the usual websites. I tore apart my Better Homes and Gardens and riffled through America’s Test Kitchen but nothing I saw was making the grade. Let down so completely and totally by those I trusted most in my kitchen, I decided I would combine them all together and hope for some sort of miraculous fusion of deliciousness. I found a sort of “cooking for dummies” page online which told me the basics; bottom round to save money and brown the meat to caramelize the sugars (Pot Roast 101) and braise. (Huh? Don’t know what that is? Neither did I. Braising is how you slow cook tougher cuts of meat in liquid. Thanks, internet. You get credit for my marriage too!) Then I just grabbed the elements that appealed to me from each recipe. Garlic? Sure! V-8? Throw some in there! Potatoes, carrots, onions…yum! And what I didn’t have, I substituted. One recipe called for 4 tomatoes, but only one lone vine-ripened survivor sat atop my bamboo cutting board. I added one can of diced tomatoes from the pantry and cut up the cherry tomatoes I was going to serve with veggies before the meal, and voila! Haphazard, maybe, but it seemed fitting somehow.

As the ingredients flew into the crockpot, I realized how much this meal resembled us as a family. We sort of improvised, taking the things we loved and mushing them together to make something even better. The weird thing was that generally when I cooked, I was afraid to stray too far from the recipe, in case disaster were to strike, but for this pot roast that was so important to me, I just winged it. Finally, everything was in place. I set the crockpot, and moved on to preparing the rest of the meal.

Later in the day, Jane arrived at our home and when entering, commented on the wonderful smell pouring out from the crockpot. She said that she couldn’t wait for dinner and that she knew that no matter what I had made, she would love it. She went on and on about how happy she was for her son, and how happy we all looked together. I didn’t even know what to say. I mean, she hadn’t even tried my cooking yet, and she liked me anyway. I was overcome with love for this woman who didn’t need me to prove anything to her, and took me at my word.

As we sat down to eat, our plates heaped with food, we took a moment to reflect on the loved ones around us. What a motley bunch we were, what a pot roast of people. It made me understand that family wasn’t always about the family you married into, or who shared your DNA, but sometimes it was about the things that just ended up together and still tasted good. I lifted my glass of Coca-Cola and made a toast. “Here is to the pot roast family. We’re a little of this and a little of that and some of whatever else we happen to have. We are four different ingredients, but when you mix us together you make magic.” Jane looked up from her plate and said, “Wow, Miriam, this is pot roast? It’s delicious! Tom, you should definitely marry her!”

The Author and family, Christmas Dinner 2006