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If you got in your car and the steering wheel was sticky, would you immediately know why?
For Mark Pasanen, husband of Seven Days food writer Melissa Pasanen, a recent sticky situation was easily explained: Korean chicken wings, which Melissa ate in the Donwoori parking lot.
"She wanted to eat them while they were hot," Mark said with a knowing smile. "That's the only way."
Sticky wheels are just one of the occupational hazards of being married to a food writer. My husband of six and a half years, Kevin, is the food-scraps-in-the-car culprit more often than I am. But he has a different pet peeve about my job: being noticed.
While I've always envied the elaborate disguises employed by restaurant critics in big cities — especially Gael Greene's hat collection — Seven Days food writers don't dress up to hide our identities. Sometimes we get recognized, and good service quickly becomes suspiciously great, over-the-top service.
"I hate it," Kevin said.
Restaurant coverage makes up the bulk of the food section, and that means meals out several times a month. Even if I don't call him out by name, Kevin is most often my anonymous "dining companion." After almost five years of dinners on the company dime (Seven Days pays for all our meals and those of a plus-one), he's got some opinions. Mark has been dragged around the state even longer; he and Melissa have been married 30 years, and she's been writing about food since 2000.
Somehow, they both still enjoy tagging along.
"As long as it's going fine," Mark said, with Kevin nodding in agreement. Apparently, we food writers can get a little cranky when a restaurant doesn't live up to our expectations.
Our spouses share a willingness to try whatever we tell them to order, which Melissa called "a very useful quality in a plus-one." Over the years, Mark has gamely chowed down on fertilized chicken eggs and fried silkworm pupae. Kevin, as much as he dislikes mayo, has eaten a heck of a lot of aioli.
They're useful in other ways, too. Kevin helps edit my photos so I look like I know what I'm doing behind the camera, and one of Melissa's most-read stories — about an increase in reported poisonings from a ramp look-alike in spring 2020 — started with a tip from Mark.
For the Love & Marriage Issue, we all sat down on a recent Saturday afternoon over Caesar salad, cookies and glasses of Maine Beer's Lunch at Vergennes Laundry. I grilled our plus-ones about what it's like to be married to a food writer — the good, the bad and the very, very full.
How is dining with us different when we're at a restaurant we're planning to write about?
Kevin Barry: I'm constantly worried about the range of what we're getting on the menu. So I'll just sit back. I prefer it that way, honestly. People ask you, "Oh, isn't being a food writer so fun?" I've got the fun part. I don't have to do any of the narrative building. Then when the food comes, I stare at it for five minutes while you take 500 photos before digging in.
Mark Pasanen: We're incredibly well trained. When we go out with friends, I'll be like, "Hey! Wait! Melissa hasn't taken a picture of that yet."
I do the photo thing off the clock, too, to be fair. I never know when I'll need a pic of a random burger. When we tell you what to order, we make you eat all kinds of stuff — and sometimes lots of it. Have you always been a good eater?
MP: I was well suited to the role. Even before Melissa was a food writer, I would make sure to eat everything so as not to insult [the staff]. I'm wired like that, even when it's not that good. And it can be a lot of food.
I grew up eating meatloaf, not global food or really any adventuresome eating. So that's been a huge perk, because I like trying everything. She still referred to me as "a meat and potatoes guy" one time, which I'm not really. But I needed to be for the story. Now I'll be her "vegan husband" if it helps.
KB: I play the "everyman" role pretty frequently. It's a lot of burgers and pepperoni pizza. They're both a good base note. You can tell a lot about a restaurant by its burger.
Do you order differently if we're just eating for fun?
MP: I don't think so. I usually order what I want, because Melissa always orders last. It's more a question of volume. We might not get dessert. But there's always a chance something will turn into a story, even when it's not planned. It's never just fried chicken.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity and length.