Episode 2 – Meal Time

To start, let's see.

Yo, yo, yo.

Yippee-yay, yo, yay, yay.

Y-T.

He didn't.

It's so raw.

What did they...

When people say, I'm certain ethnic minorities.

That's...

Bro.

Oh, man.

Welcome to Marriage Mixed with Spencer and Shirley.

Marriage Mixed is a resource that opens the door on interracial marriage.

We share our real experiences from our interracial marriage.

And let me tell you, it has not been easy, but it is rewarding.

We talk about our differences, what has worked for us and what is still difficult.

We also share our views on important topics like food, from a white guy's perspective and from a Haitian girl's perspective.

What is our goal?

Our goal is to reach people like you who may be struggling in an interracial marriage and, through the sharing of our own story, prove to you that you are not alone.

The battle for your marriage is real, and thankfully, you have reinforcements.

Our hope is that by using this resource, you will grow in love and grace for your spouse, and ultimately find hope, help and healing for your marriage.

Sometimes, it will be tense.

And other times, you will be laughing with us as we discover new things about each other.

In this series, Into the Mix, we wanted to give you the opportunity to get to know us better.

Chances are you will find yourself relating to our experience so far.

Thanks for joining us.

Well, welcome to Marriage Mixed with Spencer and Shirley.

Today we have what I think is a really good topic, because everybody can relate to it, it's food.

We're gonna talk about what we used to eat growing up, the different type of meal routines that we had, just all subjects around food.

I realize there's actually like a lot here to talk about, so you can just pick whatever you want, breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

I mean, breakfast, I would eat at school, lunch I would eat at school, so it's really just dinner.

Okay.

So just on the week, on Sundays, was like, my mom always made a really special or nice dinner, I guess.

She would make like, usually something with sauce po'a, which is like black bean sauce.

So some type of rice and sauce po'a, and like turkey, like stewed turkey or chicken.

I don't think she really made chicken on Sundays, does she?

Like some type of special meat.

You're talking about Sunday specifically?

Yeah, Sunday.

Okay.

More Legim, which is like a dish with like vegetables and meat and seafood and stuff.

So yeah, Sunday was like the nice meal, and usually there was always leftovers, like on Monday.

Besides that, we would eat stuff like rice and chicken, for example, like rice with some type of beans in it and chicken.

Or it could be like another typical thing is like a whole bunch of boiled things, like boiled plantains, boiled potatoes, boiled yams, and like some type of meat or fish or something.

Like boiled fish?

What do you mean?

Well, you said like a bunch of boiled stuff, and then you threw in fish.

I've never heard of like boiled fish.

Is that a thing?

I wasn't talking about the fish.

I was talking about the other stuff, like you boil plantains and potatoes and yams and stuff.

Yeah.

So like all of those stuff are boiled.

So that's like the car part of the meal.

And then like fish or whatever else you might have made instead of fish.

Then there's also like corn meal, I think you might call it.

But in Korea, I was called ma-i-mul-e.

So it could be that and like fish or something.

I think as we got older on Fridays, she would like have a frozen pizza for us, but we didn't really know how to use the oven, and we would put it in before it was preheated, and the pizza would come out so hard, and it was hard to cut.

And it didn't even taste that great because it wasn't cooked right.

Was it dijonab?

Yeah.

So it sounds like fish was probably the most common meat that you guys were having?

No.

No?

No.

What did that miss?

Maybe chicken was.

I was just saying that's one of the things that she might have made.

Okay.

But that wasn't the most common thing.

Because I just assumed it was, because you mentioned it.

Yes.

So what would be the most common?

Chicken.

I just...

It's okay.

Um, yes, how about you?

What are the typical things you guys ate for dinner?

Um, mom made all kinds of stuff, but she made casseroles for her big thing.

So, one night she might make something with the meat, like she might make like a roast or something, which is like a big complex meal to make and it tastes delicious.

But then she would take the leftovers from it and combine it with like pasta.

And she put soups in there and mix like all the stuff together and make like a casserole, which you kind of like scoop out with a like a big spoon.

Then that's kind of how she made the meals go further.

Or she would make like soups or chilies or, you know, things that she can put on a crockpot and feed the whole family with.

So those were pretty common.

We'd always have a meat and at least one veggie of some kind, like corn or broccoli or beans, peas, which we were all begrudgingly ate.

And then we would have dessert and she would make my couple made dessert every night.

Which was the pinnacle of dinner time.

It's getting the dessert.

Although as I got older, I started to like the main meal more than I like the dessert.

But we're a huge family, so it's hard to get more of that.

Did you guys, it sounds like you didn't have dessert if I'm tracking?

Yeah, but my mom never made dessert.

She never made a dessert ever?

No.

She never, like, baked a cake or made cookies ever?

No.

I mean, like, she would make, like...

She didn't even make Haitian cake?

No.

You said she made donuts, though.

She made donuts, like, once in the daytime.

Once?

Yeah.

In your entire life?

Yeah.

I feel like you used to say that your mom would make donuts.

She made donuts, like, maybe once, maybe twice in the daytime, like, during summer or something.

But it wasn't even, like, super sweet.

It's not like it had a glaze or something.

It was just, like, fried dough.

Interesting.

She made tablet, which sometimes, which is like this nut thing, like nuts and coconut and something that was, like, kind of sweet.

Tablet.

Tablet is what they call it.

Is there a T at the end?

Tablet.

Like tablet.

Yeah.

But.

That's what I'm asking.

Yeah.

But we didn't have dessert.

She just made dinner.

Haitians don't even eat, in my experience, foods that are super sweet.

But she would buy, like, a pack of Oreos or something, like when she went grocery shopping, and that was basically all we had for the week.

And it would finish in, like, the first two days or something.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Man.

And my mom still does not make dessert.

Interesting.

I guess I would have thought that she'd make it, like, you just didn't grow up eating it, but I figured she would, like, make it at some point, but I guess not.

Dessert is not really part of their culture that much, like, if you, like, I feel like Asians and Haitians are kind of the same, where, like, a compliment is when a dessert isn't too sweet.

They're like, oh, this is not too sweet.

Whereas, like, Americans really like stuff very sweet.

Yeah.

Our consumerism, probably, or I don't know what you would call it.

Probably, any culture that has like excess would enjoy that versus like a culture that's more focused on like survival, you know, like, would value that.

I mean, there's not, like, I don't, I'm pretty sure my, my family, my mom didn't grow up with the oven in the house.

So how do you make, bake something?

Or like, have access to those certain ingredients?

I don't know.

Well, I guess what I was maybe trying to say is it's more like a luxury.

And like in Haiti, there's probably not like many luxuries, if I had to guess.

Or maybe there are luxuries, but the typical person wouldn't have that.

So it makes sense that would translate in the States.

If that's how you grew up.

So I put on here meat versus carbs as a topic.

We kind of covered that a little bit.

You didn't hear many carbs when I talked about my meals, but I know that carbs are a big thing for you.

Did you guys even have that much meat with your meals?

Yeah, definitely.

That was like the main thing.

So we might have like a meatloaf.

Or mom would make like two meatloaves for the whole family.

And you know, we'd get like two or three pieces of meatloaf.

We'd eat that.

Or she would make like a, I think it's like goulash, or it's like the shell pasta, like in a red sauce with beef.

She makes spaghetti with beef.

Oh, I'm saying beef, but it was all ground turkey.

She was avoiding fat.

But yeah, we definitely had a lot of meat.

Yeah, I think we had, we definitely had meat with like every meal.

But we had a lot of like carbs too.

Like a lot of rice, a lot of like, like other stuff like plantains or yellow yams or potatoes.

That would like fill you up, I think.

And meat's expensive too, so.

Can't just fill up on meat.

Yeah.

The next topic was dessert or no dessert.

We already talked about that.

I definitely had dessert.

So it's, I thought, I think when I wrote this, I was thinking about how we often joke that, like, I don't want dessert, you know, because I grew up with it, having it all the time.

So it's like, I'm kind of done with it.

Whereas you didn't have any dessert.

So now you, when you make meals, you want to have dessert.

So it's like this weird thing.

I don't necessarily want to have dessert right after dinner, because I'm like full, and I feel like it doesn't even taste that good if you're like completely full.

I think I probably enjoy it more like, maybe in the middle of the day or something, when I'm like not completely full, and I'm like awake enough to eat it.

But like right after dinner, I'm kind of full.

So it doesn't taste that good.

But you like it, right?

Yeah, so I tend to like to eat dessert.

And Spencer does not as much.

Yeah, I still eat it for sure, but not as much.

Yeah.

That's kind of interesting, how that worked.

I think we're probably like at a healthy, like medium, in our family, because I feel like we don't always have dessert.

Yeah, it ebbs and flows.

When we have it, we have a lot of it though.

What do we have a lot of?

Well, like we have cookies right now, so we've been having cookies almost every night, which feels like a lot of cookies.

But it's not like we're eating like ten cookies.

We eat like, I eat like four, you eat like three.

Or two.

I mean, that's a lot of cookies.

Not really.

You know, how much the typical person probably eat way more than that.

I don't know.

Maybe not way more, but like four, three, that's very much moderation.

This depends on where you're from.

Like, there was one family we knew growing up, where we'd get like a stack of like six Oreos each for dessert.

We had different numbers for the age of like the kids.

So they put down a stack of Oreos, and we had some friends over.

And the kids were watching, apparently.

I don't know if I'll ever remember, but the kids were watching with like wide eyes, as we each got our stack, and they were looking at their parents.

And the mom was like, one each.

And we were like astonished that some other people lived, where they literally got to eat one Oreo for dessert.

And we felt like we were pigs after that.

I mean, the serving size is probably pretty small on Oreos, but I don't know how you could possibly just eat one.

Yeah, and those poor kids, but dessert wasn't a thing in their family.

So that's when you said like three or four is moderation.

It's like, it depends on who you ask.

I mean, those are kids where they don't get to choose on their own.

But I think three or four cookies is not a lot.

It's homemade, though.

Big cookies.

They're not that big.

It's not even the size of your hand.

It's not like a chipahoy, like three or four of those.

It's definitely heavier than that.

That's all I'm saying.

I think it's very much moderation to like eat as much as we eat.

So Shirley, do you think we have a difference here?

I think you're different than me.

I think we're different.

Yeah, you're different than me.

I'm different than you.

There you go.

I think the amount of cookies we eat is not much.

Thanks for making that point.

It's really not.

All right, this episode has taken a long time, but let's go over some of these.

What's a food that you've learned to like from me?

I've learned to like sunny side up eggs is that what it's called?

When we were first married, probably our first, probably very much our first year of marriage, Spencer was trying to get me to eat these wet eggs.

And I was like, I don't want to eat wet eggs.

Just was like, ew, I don't want to eat wet eggs.

He's like, trust me, try it.

I don't know if I tried it the first time that you tried to get me to try it.

I don't know how many times it took, but I tried it and it was actually good.

But I would watch him dip his bread into wet eggs.

Did you say that it tasted like butter?

Yeah, I think that's what helped convince you is when I said it's like buttery and then your ears perked up.

That's such a white way of saying it.

My ears became little elf ears.

That's not what perked up means.

What does it mean?

You're seeing like a deer in the woods but they hear a sound?

No, I'm black.

I don't see deers in woods.

Well, if you were in Africa, they would.

They would see deer?

Sure.

They got deer out there.

They got all sorts of stuff.

Oh, well, I am not from.

But like their ears like point to the direction.

That's what that means.

Well, we had kind of the same idea, I think.

I just thought pointy ears.

I literally forgot what we were talking about already because I'm so tired.

Um, the eggs.

Yes, and I tried it and it was actually good.

Is there something else that you can think of that you introduced me to that I like?

There's a lot of different stuff.

I don't remember off hand right now.

What's something I introduced you to?

Rice.

Do you like rice now?

Yeah, I used to hate rice because, oh man, my mother listens.

I don't want to hurt her.

No, I just, it's not part of white culture at all to make rice bread.

Of course you can.

You'll catch some white people who know how to make some good bread, but rice, that is not a natural skill.

Because they're probably not making it on the stove top.

They're probably just buying the instant rice.

And then she bought a rice maker and I was like, oh, this tastes a lot better.

But when I tasted your rice, it was like, whoa, this is, no wonder people eat rice.

Like this is, I like it.

Like tonight we had rice with lima beans and chicken and it's so good.

Like that's probably my favorite meal now, to be honest.

Interesting.

Yeah, making it on the stove top definitely is the way to go.

I have never made it in a rice cooker, but you've tasted my rice probably when I've gotten better at making rice.

But when I first started, I wasn't good, especially with the directions I got from my mom, because it wasn't like like super precise directions.

So like I would have like mushy rice or something, because I had too much water or whatever I was doing wrong.

But when I learned to read the package of the rice, actually is when I learned how to make it correctly.

I remember you saying that.

Yeah.

I read the package of like the certain brand of Jasmine rice and followed it to like exactly.

And that's how I learned how to make rice correctly.

You make it really good, honey.

Thanks.

What foods do we love to eat but won't make ourselves?

It's easy for me.

I hate making all food.

I hate it.

I hate making food.

But you make some foods.

I really dislike.

You even hate making oatmeal?

I despise making oatmeal.

Why?

Because you don't like it anymore?

As much?

I just, I...

Let me put it this way.

I hate cooking.

Yes.

I really hate it.

It's so unrewarding to me.

It's like...

soul-sucking.

I really dislike it.

So much effort for so little payoff.

And I love food.

So, it's kind of a weird combination.

Hmm, not really.

I just don't like making it.

I think I have a, like, dislike relationship with making food, for sure.

It's a lot of work.

What foods do I, like, love to eat, but won't make myself?

I really love Legim.

It's my favorite food.

It's an Haitian dish, but I never learned to make it.

Maybe one day I'll learn to make it.

You gotta explain a little bit quickly what Legim is.

I explained it a little earlier.

It's like a dish with, like, meat, seafood, like, and like, like, eggplant, or I don't know how to say that word.

This green vegetable that's, like, mashed up.

And this takes a really long time to make.

Has different elements to it.

It's really delicious, but I don't, I never made that myself.

I never learned how to make it.

Another one is cinnamon rolls.

I like cinnamon rolls.

It tastes really good.

But, like, looking up how to make them, they're a lot of work, and it seems like they might even come up very good if you try to make them yourself.

Or croissants, they are a crazy amount of work.

So, those are some things that I have not learned to make, or tried making myself some things.

I'm like, I'd rather buy that.

I'd rather buy a cinnamon roll.

That makes sense.

Well, with that, I'm gonna go make some cookies.

Pretty late.

Yeah, I'm hungry now.

Is there anything you wanna share or add?

Favorite drink?

Now that I married you, I'm not thirsty no more.

Okay.

Alright, thanks for joining us for this episode of Marriage Mixed.