Off the Grid: An air fryer saved my marriage

In an exceedingly gender-normative narrative à la a 1950s marriage guide, my husband and I tend to take on rather traditional roles in our division of labor in the household. But we’re Gen Xers, so we try to adapt to a more modern approach from time to time.

Somehow, our chromosomes or cultural biases betray us during chore time. If Charlie cleans the bathrooms, the house is guaranteed to smell of industrial bleach for about eight hours. If I “repair” something, it’s probably done with crafter’s duct tape or a colored ribbon. As parents of the gender-defiant generation, we get a lot of eye rolling.

For all my mountain madness, backwoods living and firewood chopping, I am still the mother hen of my home and the primary nurturer and nourisher. I’m also a nutritionist and thus compelled to issue supplements, demands to eat vegetables and inquiries as to bowel movement health on a regular basis. But most of all: I cook really good food for my family.

Alas, I also work and sometimes the family is tasked with dinner (often, actually). Charlie has not developed an exoskeleton resistant to insistent teenagers, so the takeout sometimes wins. I’m not sure how they live with the shame of it, because my disapproving stare is of such condensed power, they should have developed an eating disorder by now.

My meal criteria are usually: Dead animals and vegetables, plus whatever source of starch you carb-loving heathens want to gorge yourselves on. My family is accommodating, if not creative. I recently came home to something they referred to as a “Bigga.” It was a pizza crust with a 2-pound burger patty on top of it. Unable to find an appropriate sauce, they blended a can of tomatoes and baked that over the top. My intestines are still recovering.

I cannot say my family is picky, by any means. If I cook it, they will eat it. And yet, eating vegetables and knowing how to cook them in a manner that maintains their edibility are two entirely different things. The latter is rather an art form, especially when it comes to the likes of eggplant, anything in the squash family, or the unusual fare of rutabaga and company.

Charlie’s answer to the challenge is to cook everything in butter. We go through Amish rolls at a rate that baffles cardiologists and explains why I can run 40 miles a week and never lose a pound. We have a sort of codependent enabling dynamic going on in which I complain bitterly about my pant size, then eat eight helpings of broccoli (with about 16 of butter), followed by claims that I must have some genetic mutation keeping me … robust.

Recently, I found myself in Costco with another man. It is the only infidelity of sorts acceptable in our marriage, after having survived one trip with my husband who was shocked to discover I preferred browsing to his method of competitive contact bulk shopping.

I knew I’d found my Costco soulmate when my friend, Matt, said, “Let’s go look at the clothes. My wife wants some new leggings and baby clothes.”

In the refrigerator section, where we tossed organic salad mixes to each other, I talked of getting a bag of zucchini at the risk of it being turned into a meal straight out of an Irish orphanage.

“You don’t have an air fryer?” Matt had asked me earlier, not even trying to hide his culinary condescension. Apparently, when he’s not shopping at Costco, he’s solving all the problems of the world with his air fryer. Convinced by his sales pitch and the promise of perfectly caramelized vegetables with “just a spray of oil,” I came home with a brand new appliance.

This is a luxury of living on-grid. Thus far, my air frying meant blowing on veggies while I sautéed them. Now, my family could make healthy vegetables almost by accident!

That first night, I dabbled with some green beans or mushrooms. As a loyalist to traditional means of cooking (and natural gas, no matter how bad the press is), I thought I’d end up wanting to scrub the traitorous stench off my skin, or in the very least, returning the thing after discovering it’s just not that impressive.

I was wrong and I apologize to everyone I ever shamed about their air fryers.

On the second night, I came home late from the office to find my lumber-lover husband and fiber-resistant child had made a spread of every vegetable we had in the fridge. There were air-fried carrots, onions, green beans with ham, mushrooms and more. My arteries and I sighed with relief as we sat down to enjoy a meal that far exceeded my wildest expectations and renewed my faith in my husband’s ability to do just about anything he sets his mind to.

“This is amazing,” I mumbled through a mouthful of delicate champignons browned to perfection.

“The secret is in the butter,” he said.

I suppose some things will never change. And maybe that’s a good thing.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammimarie@gmail.com