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Hi, guys!  Winnie’s hubby here.  Win got a huge number of orders for Mother’s Day and First Communion cards, and is in the basement creating away.  So she turned today’s blog post over to me.

I thought I would pull a Mario (and I suspect most of you will get the reference, if not, you can click on the link) and take you “Behind the Scenes” at Winnie’s Inky Fingers.

On weekdays, Winnie crafts during the evening, right after dinner.  The division of labor was a snap to figure out from the beginning of our marriage, and for those of you who’ve been following the blog it’s pretty obvious:  Win does the cooking, and I do the cleaning up.  She’s a fabulous cook, and I like the Zen of doing dishes.  Okay, so occasionally I forget a pot or so, but for the most part it works well.  She’s fun to shop with as well:  we hit Giunta’s Meat Farms and Stop & Shop and she’s creating menus on the fly.  You’ve already seen some of the great things she comes up with (thank you, Ree Drummond, Rachael Ray, Homesick Texan et al. for the ever-developing bay window around my midriff).  Once in a while we’ll see something fun from our youth and pick it up as well.  Which brings me to last night’s dinner.

We knew yesterday would be a busy day since, as I mentioned, Winnie had a number of orders (upwards of twenty cards) to take care of this weekend. We fortified ourselves on Friday night by treating ourselves at Carrabba's, where she had the lentil-and-sausage soup (ditto for me) and chicken parmesan, and I had The Damian (wood-grilled salmon, spiedino di mare - translation: sea scallops - and lobster ravioli). We split a John Cole (vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and roasted cinnamon rum pecans) and came home content.

  

So yesterday morning I was checking out the larder to find something quick and easy for Saturday dinner.  And I came up with:

Yep.  SPAM.  In a spasm of health-consciousness, we had picked up the 25%-less-sodium version.  Win fried it up in a pan, and we had it with Stop & Shop Tater Bites (which beats the name brands in taste by a mile) and their baby peas.

And, yes, we washed it down with a nice Chardonnay.

And, oddly enough, it was pretty yummy. The lower sodium content actually improves the taste from what I remember as a kid.   And it accomplished its main mission, which was to feed us both and get Winnie back down to the basement while I cleaned up.

And now you know why I leave the cooking – and blogging – to my talented wife.