Posted: February 13th, 2008 - 2:43pm by Doug Powell

That's the headline of a N.Y. Times story about couples with divergent dietary preferences and how they ever manage to live together.

The story says that no-holds-barred carnivores, for example, may share the view of Anthony Bourdain, who wrote in his book “Kitchen Confidential” that “vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans ... are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.”

Ben Abdalla, 42, a real estate agent in Boca Raton, Fla., said he preferred to date fellow vegetarians because meat eaters smell bad and have low energy.

June Deadrick, 40, a lobbyist in Houston, said she would have a hard time loving a man who did not share her fondness for multicourse meals including wild game and artisanal cheeses. “And I’m talking cheese from a cow, not that awful soy stuff."

Kathryn Zerbe, a psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, said food has a strong subconscious link to love, and "that is why refusing a partner’s food can feel like rejection."

Amy and I never had that problem.

On our first dinner-and-a-movie at her place back in 2005, we fretted for 30 minutes about various takeout options, before she finally suggested going to the local supermarket and grabbing a couple of steaks to grill.

Love bloomed.

And then I taught her how to use a thermometer.

Wow.

Happy Valentine's.

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