Neither Bill nor Jennifer Casto likes to cook, so they have dined out nearly every night for 24 years

Listening to Bill and Jennifer Casto discuss their first Christmas together reveals just about everything you need to know about the couple.

First, that they think alike and can even finish each other’s sentences.

Second, well, it’s about their eating habits:

“Do you remember where we ate our first Christmas in Columbus?” Jennifer asks.

Together, they reply: “Waffle House.”

Jennifer: “Because we couldn’t find any other place.”

Bill: “That was before there were a lot of restaurants open on Christmas. Now, there are a lot, but at that time (1995) we searched all over for them.”

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Jennifer: “That Christmas, we ate one meal at Waffle House and one meal at the (OhioHealth Riverside Methodist) hospital cafeteria. Those were the two places that were open.”

That Christmas was spent in the same fashion as almost every other day in the 24-year marriage of the Short North couple: eating out. And on the nights they don’t eat out, they bring food home.

By now, it may be obvious that there is one thing they definitely don’t do.

“He doesn’t like to cook, and I don’t like to cook,” Jennifer said.

And so they don’t. Ever. It’s really that simple.

“Why start a bad habit?” Jennifer said.

They will have yogurt or microwave oatmeal for breakfast and maybe a grab-and-go lunch of carrot sticks or fruit on some days, but that's about the extent of their meal preparation.

The two met in Delaware at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, where Bill, 77, a former pastor, was a professor and Jennifer, 52, a student. After her graduation, the two kept in touch, and, eventually, romance blossomed. They wed in August 1995 in what was his second marriage — he has three grown children — and her first.

They like to jokingly joust about Jennifer’s rare attempts to cook. One story ends with Jennifer and Bill slipping on grease-splattered floors after a pan-fried chicken recipe went south. There also was a time when Jennifer ruined a microwave oven by forgetting to add water to a macaroni-and-cheese cup.

But as Jennifer points out, “He never attempts (to cook). It’s not like he says, ‘No no no, since you can’t cook, I’ll take over.’ ”

So the couple has developed a bit of a lunch and dinner routine, much of it based around Jennifer’s job as pastor at Epworth United Methodist Church on the Northeast Side (Bill is retired):

• On Saturdays, they go to Jason’s Deli in Grandview Heights for dinner.

• On Sundays, after church, they go to First Watch in German Village for brunch.

• On Mondays, usually Jennifer’s day off, they go to Olive Garden for lunch.

• On Wednesdays, they go to Panera in Clintonville before she heads back to church for an evening Bible study.

• And on Fridays, the one night they typically eat at home, Jennifer goes to the gym and then gets take-out from Chipotle.

Other days and meals are filled in based on their schedules and whims. Some favorite spots include Noodles & Company, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, and Arby’s.

They occasionally eat at one of his children’s houses — all of them live in Clintonville — and they spend Thanksgiving at

Bill’s brother’s house in Delaware, so they are not entirely without home-cooked meals.

But their movable feast does extend to Christmas, when his kids spend time with their mother and various spouses’ families. For several years, their Christmas go-to was China Dynasty in Upper Arlington, but it closed earlier this year.

“We are still grieving,” Jennifer said. “We will have to find a replacement by Christmas.”

The couple is cost-conscious. In most cases, they split a meal because they share the same general food likes and dislikes. They almost always forgo appetizers and dessert, too.

“It comes off as an expensive, extravagant thing to do, but it’s actually not,” Bill said. “We don’t go to big, fancy meals except for once in a while.”

They also try to eat healthfully, in most cases skipping fatty sides such as fries and asking for sauces and salad dressings on the side.

Every once in awhile, though, when one is not feeling well or winter weather makes travel hazardous, they will stay home and open a can of soup or pour a bowl of cereal.

“There often is absolutely nothing but a bottle of milk in our refrigerator,” Bill said. “It was several years before our oven was actually ever lit, and it only got lit because my daughter came over with something to warm up for dinner.”

Along the way, they have discovered that dining out has strengthened their bond as husband and wife.

“We have time to talk to each other about our day, to actually have a relationship instead of being stressed in the kitchen,” Bill said. “It has made a big difference in our relationship.”

Jennifer added, “We want to spend as much of our free time together as possible, and if we were cooking and cleaning the kitchen, that would take time away from that. And so the time that we spend together is actually time we enjoy.”

kgordon@dispatch.com

@kgdispatch