We’re Steve and Amanda Dullinger.
We love food and cooking together, it’s kind of one of our ‘things.’
We also love to go on fishing trips and retreats to Northern New Hampshire,
as well as taking simple ‘date nights’ in town. We just love to do things together, really.
We first discovered our passion for food and cooking in 2007, when we bought our home in Bridgton, Maine. We began with family recipes tweaking and experimenting, then switched to scouring the internet for new ideas. Our kitchen was pretty much our workshop, if you can call cooking together work?
Not really, it was basically a party!
We’d crank up some lively music, usually Green Day or Reel Big Fish, pour a drink of Wild Turkey (responsibly, of course), and have fun with it! Our two dogs: the late, great Jack ‘the King’ and his naughty side kick, ‘Bad Dog’ Brady, happily joined in the dancing and fun. Mostly they just enjoyed being around to clean up anything that inadvertently dropped in the floor.
Meanwhile, in ‘real life’, we were both working in the super fun world of retail management (hint of sarcasm there).
Like many, we bought into the idea that working for others was responsible ‘adulting.’ I mean, aren’t we supposed to work hard to plan for the next stage of life? Plus, we had our fur babies to keep fed and comfortable…
Occasionally we’d dream of starting our own business so we could work together on something fun every day. But we were afraid of what might happen if we gave up our ‘guaranteed’ salaries.
Our lives were stable, safe, and healthy. Until they weren’t.
“You know you have cancer, right?”
“That’s how we got the news of Amanda’s cancer. It was Thanksgiving, 2013. Amanda was only 30 years old at the time.
The poor intern assigned to us was working her first day alone and assumed we already knew.
We were stunned. All we could manage was to shake our heads.
The intern was clearly shaken to discover she’d blurted out such a diagnosis. And it only got worse from there.
“The biopsy has confirmed you have Mesothelioma. I’m sorry, the local hospitals don’t have the team to handle it, so we’re referring you to Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. I’ll give you a few minutes, alone.
Crushing numbness is probably the best way to describe it, though it falls a tad short of the mark.
Then we did something that really didn’t help; we Googled “Mesothelioma.”
The dread, fear, and uncertainty began to hit.
There is no cure for Mesothelioma, only treatments designed to extend life, suppress the disease, and hopefully give the patient some degree of quality of life.
The prognosis and treatments were extreme and disheartening.
First, there were the surgeries. Multiple organs were either removed or had to be repaired. Amanda spent two whole months lying in a hospital bed. But that was only the first stage of treatment.
Then the chemo began, and it was aggressive. She had to go in for chemo once every three weeks.
Forever! There would be no end to it. And that was the hardest thing to swallow. No end…
Chemo is flat out toxic.
If you’ve ever known anyone suffering through it, then you know it’s a real gauntlet, physically and mentally.
It’s designed to poison the cancer, but it also poisons the patient.
The side effects were many. To counter those, Amanda had to swallow dozens of pills, multiple times every day.
After her treatments, most days were simply weak attempts to achieve any level of comfort. Occasionally, she might find the strength to step outside of the house for a bit, but those days were rare.
Before we knew it, it was time for another chemo treatment, and the entire process repeated itself
Every month. Forever…
Of course, the drugs she took to counteract the chemo, brought along their own litany of ills.
Sometimes she was unable to stay awake during the day, or sleep at night. She was often too sick to ride in the car.
But the worst side effect was the lack of appetite, and nausea.
Those evenings in the kitchen, dancing with me and the dogs, making dinner and experimenting with recipes, was a fading memory.
Now, the kitchen was a toxic, factory of air pollution.
The slightest scent of food from the kitchen instantly turned her stomach.
Even her love of food was gone. No appetite, no food, no cooking, no dancing with the dogs…
For five long years, Amanda kept up this grueling and depressing process: chemo, drugs, nausea, weakness, repeat.
Just when things seemed they could not get worse, they did…
In early 2019, we were presented with another terrifying revelation.
“I’m afraid,” her doctor told us, “the negative effects of five years of chemotherapy are now outweighing the benefits.”
Again, we were stunned and devastated. All that pain and suffering, and for what?
The chemo had been, and was probably still, keeping her cancer at bay, allowing her to live. But with what quality of life? Not very good, for sure.
Now we were faced with another very hard decision.
Should she continue to take the chemo and hope for the best? Or should she stop it altogether?
We really were at rock bottom in that moment. There seemed to be nowhere to go.
We chose to make a change and not to give up on each other. We chose to set free the fear of the unknown and would go ‘all in,’ from now on!
Amanda stopped her treatments, and we went to work on that dream of self employment.
We no longer cared about making loads of money. It wasn’t important anymore. Years of cancer treatment had afforded us a very different perspective on life.
We only had to find a business that would allow us to get by, care for our fur babies, and spend as much time as possible, together.
But what should we do? What could we do…realistically?
We ran several ideas up the flagpole, so to speak.
“How about a doggie day care?”
“Or an online retail store?”
“A commercial cleaning company?”
None of them really seemed to generate much passion.
Until one-night, late October of that year…
Monday Night Football was on. The Patriots were just about to destroy the Jets, the game is on, but the volume was muted, and we were back in the kitchen. Rockin’ out to some Reel Big Fish.
Since she’d ditched the chemo and most of those pills, Amanda’s body was making a comeback!
That night we decided to make the greatest grilled cheese sandwich ever!
Not just any grilled cheese, either the greatest grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwich!
Yeah, sounds weird, but stick with us…
We were well prepared. Armed with a giant jar of JIF peanut butter, and several different breads and cheeses, we dove into the challenge.
It was all about trial and error and tasting stuff. The dog was there to help, of course. I mean, dogs love peanut butter!
“Hey, I think this is it!” Amanda said biting into the fifth test sandwich.
And so, the dream began to evolve.
But that’s not where it ended, of course. Nothing’s that easy…or simple…
After much deliberation we decided to open a food truck and the following month, we commissioned a regional builder to build it! The plan was to be ready for early February 2020…
Well, some things happened in 2020. You might remember them.
To say it was a challenge to open a new business during a pandemic would be an understatement. And that’s beside the challenges of opening a business, normally!
We unfortunately chose to do business with the wrong builder and suffered several major mechanical breakdowns… Then pandemic related red tape kicked in.
It took another five months to open for business! But we did it!
And now we’ve been on the road making Mainly Melt grilled cheese sandwiches and other comfort food for over two years! How did we do it?
We simply refused to give up on each other, or our dreams, even when life continued to throw curve balls.
Thank you for supporting us!
We love serving you, and we look forward to serving up grilled cheese and smiles, for years to come!
– Amanda & Steve