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<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">As I write, there's an eight-pound hunk of organic-fed pork butt slow cooking on the grill; it's just getting settled into its ten-hour roast. Recipes for spicy cilantro slaw and buttermilk cornbread are at the ready on the kitchen table. I guess we better invite some people over to help eat all this food.</span>

Jason, as I mentioned in an earlier <a href="http://halfwaytonormal.blogspot.com/2007/06/love-in-unexpected-places.html">post about him</a>, is a superb cook. A significant portion of his skill comes from his pure love for good flavors and his willingness to do what it takes to create them. Last night at 10:30 he was trimming the pork and making the marinade; this morning he was up before work firing up the grill and smearing the homemade rub on the meat. I'll take care of the slaw and cornbread this afternoon, and...viola! Tuesday dinner!

Eating this way on a regular Tuesday, I'm happy to say, is not that big a deal. Being friends with people who eat like this on a random weekday is also just the way things are. In order to really share the love we all have for making delicious things, we've started a little cooking club with Ellen and Gabriel, and Laurence and Paige.

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On the surface, we probably sound less-than-humble as we're eating and talking about our collective creations. We thrive on the drama of putting a morsel in our mouths and then making some visible or audible demonstration of culinary rapture (the eyes might open extra wide, or gaze up in ecstasy, or some seemingly sexual moan of pleasure might escape our lips). Gabriel, upon taking a bite of something tasty, is known to almost shout, "This is ri-DI-culous!" We also like to say things like "I forget—what's the best Mexican (or Indian or Italian) restaurant in town? Oh yeah, your house or our house." (I know, not much of a punch line, unless you're one of us.)

All this love for our own cooking, though, is endearing (really!), because it's all about surprise and delight and heaping praise on one another. We can't believe there are ingredients in the world that can have this kind of effect on our taste buds, and that we are friends with people who can combine ingredients in such exquisite ways. The pleasure is all rooted in a love for flavors and creativity, and the opportunity to give our favorite people delicious gifts. (Plus, of course, it's about making sure the wine or mojitos or beer doesn't have its way with empty stomachs.)

When it came time, a few months back, for Jason and I to plan a wedding eve dinner for family and friends, no restaurant or caterer would do. Tables and chairs for 30 were set up in Laurence and Paige's endlessly interesting garden, and Gabriel and Laurence took charge of the kitchen, with Ellen and Paige baking all the breads and desserts. This meal consisted of five courses of over-the-top ri-DI-culous taste treats. Talk about love.

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