The first time John cooked for me he carefully cut and arranged things on a pizza then left the pie in the oven until everything sticking up was burnt. He preferred his this way but had decided to serve it baked “normally” to impress me and forgot to adjust the timer to his new idea. But I loved it, having already learned the joy of bringing many foods up to dark brown, then just around the corner from black.
When I was younger I was afraid to commit, afraid being wrong of being bad. I never finished any art ideas didn’t believe in God and even as a teen was terrified to order at restaurants. John was not afraid to follow through an idea in his teens. He jumped out of a friend’s car while it was moving just to see if he could do it, then they’d drive faster and he’d do it again.
He’s still surprised I like burnt food and wrote me this love poem:

My wife says, “I learned to fry cheese toast from you, the outsides are both black, the insides are goo.”  nancymauerman.com