STRANGER THAN FICTION: HUSBAND'S COOKING LEAVES BAD TASTE IN MOUTH

The strangest thing is probably the pancakes, which actually are the size of real cakes.

The Other Half has been checking out cookbooks -- the latest development in his recent metamorphosis from the man I married into a total stranger.

The man I married on April 28, 1995, the one captured on our wedding video singing "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," could cook one thing -- spaghetti. Even that was a little shaky. He usually didn't put enough water in the pot to cover the pasta, thus producing a product that was half mushy and half crunchy.

You can imagine my feeling of dread when he whisked a big batch of that crap out of the kitchen and onto the dining room table. Actually, he didn't have a dining room table when he was a bachelor, or even a coffee table or TV tray. We balanced the plates on our knees and crunched away at our spaghetti.

Mr. Half's bachelor pad was stocked with only the same five basics: bagels, spaghetti, canned sauce, orange juice and lettuce. That's absolutely all there ever was. He began losing weight to the point that I felt compelled to take him to the Golden Corral buffet in Sikeston whenever possible and insist on paying for the entire meal.

I put on a dress size as a result, but he didn't experience any visible weight gain.

I made the mistake of mentioning this to his grandmother, who today I jokingly refer to as Dr. Granny because of her penchant for spot diagnoses. I didn't know her as well at the time.

"You'd think he was anorexic!" I quipped, laughing.

She didn't laugh. She broke her silence on the matter by announcing Mr. Half's anorexia at our wedding shower. Of course, my own mother warmed me up for that kind of event by asking about my bowel movements in front of my fiance, so I took it in stride.

But anyway, our marriage and the joy of being DINKs (dual income, no kids) put the appetite back in Mr. Half. He slowly added other things to his cooking repertoire, including just-add-water pancakes that were golden brown on the outside, completely raw on the inside. I think the problem was that he made the pancakes the size of actual CAKES, like the kind of thing you'd typically produce using a 9-inch layer pan.

Mr. Half still makes them on occasion. Those babies absorb maple syrup like nobody's business. Really! Half a bottle is barely enough to moisten them.

And I think my personal favorite was when he attempted fried rice. Instead of scrambling the eggs away from the rest of the dish, he just broke them right into the whole thing.

The result was kind of a rice omelet.

He's backed away from the kitchen for the last couple of years, but now there's this whole cookbook thing. And I think I know the reason.

My cooking is driving him to go forth on his own.

Let's face it. A working woman who isn't a gourmet chef naturally will fall into a pattern of cooking the same five quick, cheap and easy meals. In my case, those are fajitas, low-fat chicken divan, teriyaki chicken, pasta (non-crunchy) and baked fish.

I am actually driving the man to the point where he is looking for his own recipes. Yes, the same husband who formerly grunted one-word responses to questions while shoveling down fajitas in front of televised World Wrestling Federation events is now saying things like: "I noticed a GREAT recipe for low-fat alfredo sauce. Can you imagine?"

Sure, I'd like to think that Mr. Half has changed and could successfully break the monotony of my five meals. But history has shown that an outcome other than total disaster is unlikely.

Thus, I'm not giving up my kitchen without a fight.

At least, not with the taste of those raw, two-inch-thick pancakes still fresh in my memory.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who now lives in Pensacola, Fla.