I have this thing about serving lasagna, for example, or brownies. I cut them in neat straight lines. God help you if you cut on the diagonal or jaggedly in my kitchen. Is it my need for orderliness in a disorganized world? An excuse to eat just a little more to make it even? My family has quietly accepted this quirk.
Sitting at the dinner table the other night, eating corn on the cob, C says, "You know your thing about cutting in straight lines? I would never eat corn on the cob the way you do." I look at my corn, a couple of random bites taken out of the center. I look at his, neatly eaten like a typewriter, left to right. I'm surprised he doesn't say ding at the end of the row. He has a defined method of salting and buttering as well.
I view my husband as sort of a corn expert, growing up on a farm where it was grown. One of his family's stories involving his inviting a girl over to dinner and eating a dozen ears of corn. I wonder what she thought, this young man gnawing out a thesis of corn, typewriter style. And how have I lived with this man for nearly thirty years and not been aware of our fundamental corn differences?
So my question is simply, how do you eat your corn?
I have no corn pictures but this works well with corn. From my recent East Coast trip:
Mmm, mmm, mmm, I forgot how sweet Long Island steamers are. I'm sure there's some eating OCD associated with steamers. What parts don't you eat? How long do you swish them in the water to get the sand out? Lemon in the butter or squirted on top of the clams? I'll stop.

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