Of Cookies and Spaghetti

Many years ago in the dawn of my present relationship, I was living in the cesspool of humanity, Billings Mt. Not long after the beginning of this tale, I left the city, vowing never to return. Sadly I did return there, compelled by a higher power, when my sister had heart surgery. But I digress. The other half and I were doing fairly well, young and in love, with decent jobs, no kids, our future flowing out before us with limitless possibility. The O.H.'s father and younger brother were down for weekend and I, full of creativity, prepared a great pot of the most wonderful spaghetti. It was devoured with great enthusiam and exclaimed over, and life was good. Until they returned home and told the mother in law that I had made the best spaghetti they had ever had. Nothing came of it at that point, and life went on, the family grew to include our eldest child, we moved back to this fair city and we were happy. And then one day, as I baked chocolate chip cookies, the O.H. mentioned that they were good, but not as good as his mommy used to make. Now, this suprised me, as I was using the recipe his mother had given me. So I experimented, and crafted, and looked at recipe books, and added this and that. And asked his mother if there was that one little thing she had forgotten to put in the recipe. To no avail, the cookies remained missing that key, the one little thing they needed to be extra ordinary. And then one day, everything became clear. A conversation with the m-i-l's mom and she said "After hearing that you made the best spaghetti, you are never going to get that recipe!" So now I fear that the secret to the cookies is forever lost to me. But I make damn good spaghetti.