kraft spaghetti dinner vs. mccormick spaghetti sauce mix

After graduating from college, I moved three hours west for grad school leaving my college sweetheart behind. Fortunately for me and in spite of the distance, she remained my sweetheart then (and does so to this day).

On rare occasions during that difficult year apart, one of us made the trip across northern Arkansas for a way too short weekend visit. The highlight of one of those trips was a trip to the local Food 4 Less grocery store with the end goal of working together to prepare a spaghetti supper. Neither of us had ever cooked much, but we figured that we could start out with an easy assignment and do alright. So spaghetti was our choice for our first effort at preparing a meal together.

We were both students and had keen observation skills. We knew where to find the kitchen, for example. I could even boil water and she was a quick learner. We had watched our own parents prepare spaghetti many times. Having observed our parents prepare spaghetti, we were both sure that we could do it too. Ah, there's the rub. We didn't know that between the two of us, we represented two different families that prepared spaghetti in two completely different ways.

OK, so back to that trip to Food 4 Less. Right there in the pasta aisle, we began to argue about the proper way to prepare spaghetti. I had come from a family which made spaghetti from a box--not just any box either, but Kraft Spaghetti Dinner--the green box. She had come from a family which made spaghetti dinner by buying the spaghetti separately from the spaghetti sauce mix packet--not just any packet either, but McCormick Spaghetti Sauce Mix--the red packet.

After a few minutes of knockdown-dragout verbal sparring we began to laugh when we realized how silly it was that we were arguing over how to buy spaghetti. One method had the noodles and the sauce packet in one package--the other required two packages. Now, what was the argument about?

We made our choice then, and that is the way we still make spaghetti today, but not because her parents or my parents made it that way, but because we decided then that from that point on we'd find our own way to cook--spaghetti or whatever.

We're still cooking 19 years later--in our own way. In fact, we had spaghetti tonight. This story is what I remember nearly every time we eat spaghetti.

I would encourage all young couples to set aside your preconceived ideas about everything (at least everything as important as spaghetti) and go figure out the world with that one special person. He or she is much more important than the number of packages required for one meal. My apologies for the long post.