"Honey... you've been up for 15 minutes and you haven't made me a sandwich?" That is how Stephanie Smith's boyfriend greets her in the morning. And she gets up, gladly, and makes him a sandwich, according to her New York Post article.
Last July, after Smith's boyfriend Eric Schulte ate a sandwich she made for him, he exclaimed: "Honey, you’re 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring!"
Smith is now making him 300 sandwiches in hopes of a ring, and is documenting it on her blog.
"Sandwiches meant more to him than nice gifts, regular sex, or any other incentive I could use to get him closer to putting a ring on it," says Smith.
"Maybe I needed to show him I could cook to prove that I am wife material. If he wanted 300 sandwiches, I’d give him 300 sandwiches."
Some might peg this arrangement as deeply sexist, but not Smith.
Smith writes on her blog:
Some might say the idea is sexist. "A woman in the kitchen—how Stepford Wife of you!" a friend argued. I say come over for dinner, and watch E [Eric] whip up roasted duck breast with a balsamic and currant sauce with a roasted parsnip puree and shaved pickled beets in no time, and you'll see who spends more time in the kitchen.
Some say I'm just desperate to get engaged. Hardly. I don't have to be. E didn't say "cook me 300 sandwiches or I'm leaving you!" He gave me a challenge—a dare, to some degree—and the type-A, Tracy Flick side of me can't stand being challenged. I will prove to him and the rest of the world I can make the 300 sandwiches.
“You women read all these magazines to get advice on how to keep a man, and it’s so easy,” says Eric. “We’re not complex. Just do something nice for us. Like make a sandwich.”
The sandwiches all look fantastic. As of today, she has made 176.
