He grinned at that. "What did her parents think about you having your own place?"
"Funny, but somehow that never came up in our conversations." That earned a barking laugh from him. I finished opening the bottle and poured some in glasses I pulled from an overhead rack. We sipped some, and John and I talked for a few more minutes about my bachelor days. I began pulling out the pots and pans and setting things up.
The doorbell rang and I glanced at my friend. "I'll get that. You keep cooking." He hopped up and came back a minute later leading both Newt and Jim.
"Gentlemen, welcome again. Toss your coats somewhere and have a seat. John can pour the wine." I was cutting some boned chicken breasts in half and placing them to the side; next to be cut up was a large and thick slice of boned ham and some fresh button mushrooms.
Both Jim and Newt made the same comment: "So you really can cook! It's not something you made up?"
"Some friends you guys are! Yes, I can cook! It's an excellent method of separating young ladies from their virtue! If you pull it off you look suave and sophisticated, but if you fail, you look helpless and she gets to be maternal and helpful. Keep that in mind for when you are shopping for a mistress." They all laughed at that.
"What does Marilyn think about that idea?", asked Newt.
"What, the cooking or the mistress?", I riposted.
We continued joking about cooking while I finished preparing the ingredients, and then I pulled out my electric skillet and set it on the island in front of us all. If I cooked at the stove, my back would be to everybody. I set the skillet to 300 and tossed in a stick of butter, and then began dredging the chicken breasts through flour. As the butter melted, the chicken went in, to begin sautéing. I grabbed a set of measuring spoons and began measuring out my spices.
I noticed my glass was empty and the others were getting low. "How was the wine? I need to open another bottle. The same or something different?"
Newt answered, "It was very nice." The others nodded as well, so I pulled out a second bottle and passed it and the corkscrew over to John. Newt looked at the label on the empty. "Where is this from, the Finger Lakes?"
"Yes. Marilyn and I did a nice tour of some of the wineries up there the last time we visited her folks. We like wine, so we picked up several cases. It's really quite reasonable."
Jim asked, "What is reasonable to your budget and what is reasonable to mine might be different."
I simply shook my head. "Just because I have enough money to get silly doesn't mean I do get silly. This runs about ten or twelve bucks a bottle and is very nice. Just because I can afford something ten or twenty times that, it doesn't mean I can taste the difference." I flipped the breasts and let them cook on the other side, while measuring out the wine and brandy. "We actually live fairly simply. You should come out and visit us sometime. You'll have to share a bathroom with the kids, but that's not my problem, that's yours!" That got a few laughs.
We continued talking about our homes. When the chicken breasts were lightly browned, I dropped the temperature on the skillet down to about 200 or so and dumped in the other ingredients. They would basically stew and steam in the wine, cooking the chicken and swapping flavors. "All I need to do now with the chicken is to keep an eye on things and add water to keep it from drying out."
"Has that ever happened?", asked John.
I nodded and ruefully admitted, "Yes, once back in Fayetteville, Marilyn and I ... well, when I went back into the kitchen, it was burned black in the bottom of the pan. I had to throw the pan away, it was so bad!" That earned me a fair number of snickers!
I got the Minute Rice ready to cook. That would only take about ten minutes total, so we had plenty of time to chat, maybe another half hour or so, before I had to worry and do more than just watch and stir. Inevitably the conversation turned to business, our business - politics. The big discussion was with people tossing out names for who would run against Clinton in 1996. Bob Dole was named, and I knew he would win the nomination (at least he did my first time) but whether he would win this time around I wasn't sure. Had I changed things this time? Several other names got tossed around as well, some of whom were definite and some of whom were maybes. The selection was from all over the map – politicians like Dick Lugar and Phil Gramm, businessmen like Steve Forbes and Ross Perot were wild cards, and even newspaper columnist and pundit Pat Buchanan was interested.
I wondered through all of this what effect my actions would have. Would Bob Dole win the nomination again? Would Ross Perot still be a spoiler and third party candidate? Would somebody else do better? I had a lot of respect for Senator Dole, both then and now, and said I was going to support him. It would be interesting to see how this worked out from a front row seat. I remember it being a wild and wooly primary season, and I suspected it was still going to be.
We kept talking through the rest of the preparation time, opening a third bottle of the Riesling in the process, and then I called quits to shop talk while we ate. That didn't work out all that well, since we were all a bunch of political junkies. What I found disturbing, though, was when Newt was telling us how much he wanted to hurt Clinton, to grind him into dust. It was almost personal with the man. I simply shook my head in disagreement.
"You disagree with me, Carl?"
"Yes and no, Newt. It's not so much your intention as it is your degree. It's one thing to beat the man, but leave him some wiggle room. There is nothing more dangerous than a wild animal that has been wounded and then trapped. You learn the same thing in the Army. It's better to let an enemy on the run keep running. It demoralizes the other troops facing you. If you corner them, well, desperate men do desperate things, and they have no reason not to take you down with them."
"I think you overestimate him, Carl. Bill Clinton is spent. He's a has been. We can wipe him out and replace him in two years.", Newt bragged.
"Newt, I am going to keep backing you, you know that, but this may not turn out as neat and easy as you think it will. There's a reason they named him 'Slick Willie' back in Arkansas. You may not like him, but you sure better respect him.", I replied.
"You think he's going to be that tough in '96?", asked John, in between bites of chicken. "Oh, this is so good!"
I laughed at that. "The secret isn't in the chicken, it's in the spices and the stew they make with the flour you dredge the chicken in." Then I gave it some thought. "Yeah, I think it would be very easy to underestimate Slick Willie. We have the tiger by the tail right now, but it would be very easy to end up inside the tiger!"
I went home the next night and told Marilyn I had cooked dinner for the boys, after which she pointed me towards the kitchen and made me cook for the kids. I made shrimp scampi for them, although I insisted that Marilyn had to help me with peeling the shrimp. We were able to eat by about seven or so. Now that the kids were older, we didn't have to worry about them going to bed early. The girls were still only ten. They still listen to you at that age. That would change too damn soon for my taste. Charlie was now thirteen, and had recently discovered that he was smarter than I was, or at least so he thought.