Ron Pusateri and Brad Clark of Kea'au are a self-described "match made in Heaven."

"He loves to eat. I love to cook, so we’re a match made in Heaven," Ron jokes. They both had mothers named Kate. They are both the youngest of four children. Both have sisters that are the oldest. Both have two brothers between them and their sister.

"Another match made in Heaven," Ron adds.

It is food, however, that has been a key element in their relationship from their first meeting.

Although Brad kids that Ron "followed me home and I kept him," they actually met in Sacramento in 1987 when Brad walked into the restaurant where Ron worked.

"Ron was not our waiter, but he poured an awful lot of coffee at our table that day," Brad shares. "When the weekend came along, we both went out to the gay watering hole, each of us hoping we’d see the guy from the restaurant."

It was Aug. 15, 1987 - the night of the Harmonic Convergence - when "all the planets were in line," Brad continues. They have been together ever since.

Ron admits that they started slow. Brad had just been offered a job in Monterey, so the couple decided to date long distance for six months and see how things went. If it worked out, Ron planned to move to Monterey. As a waiter, he knew it would be easy to find work.

It only took four months – not six - for Ron to make the move. As restaurant work required odd hours, Ron eventually opened his own gardening business "so our schedules would work out and we could be together more," Ron said.

When Brad got a new position in Alameda County in 1993 as an elections administrator, they both moved to Oakland, Ron starting up a new business in their new locale. Brad's role in government continued through the years, serving as the Registrar of Voters in Monterey and Alameda counties and the Assistant Secretary of State for Elections for the State of California.

It was Brad’s background in government that prevented them from pursuing a marriage when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed the San Francisco city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004.

The couple had a domestic partnership under California law (similar to Hawaii's civil unions law).

"Being that I was affiliated with the government, I knew that they (the marriages issued in San Francisco) weren't legal and I was afraid that it would disrupt our domestic partnership," Brad said. "Our domestic partnership provided Ron with health benefits. We had rights of survivorship. He would get my pension. Until we knew that it was something that was going to be legal, I didn't want to get involved."

Although they didn’t take advantage of the window of opportunity, "I'm glad Gavin Newsom did what he did," Brad said. "I'm glad he pushed the envelope the way he did. He got the ball rolling."

That ball continued rolling when, on June 16, 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled in an equal protection argument that same-sex couples should be able to obtain marriage licenses in that state.

Brad and Ron had since retired to The Big Island in February of 2006, so they returned to Alameda County to get married.

"It seemed like the right thing to do," Brad explains. "We had a domestic partnership in California and were registered as reciprocal beneficiaries in Hawaii so that we could own our house together and have rights of survivorship. We had been together for 22 years and we weren't going anywhere but together."

A former colleague allowed the couple to use the wedding room in the Alameda County recorder's office. A good friend, Janice, the county clerk in Sonoma County, performed the ceremony. A friend in the Bay area who was part Hawaiian and from Kea'au sang Hawaiian songs in Hawaiian. They had maile leis for themselves, green and white orchid leis for the ladies that stood up for them and a white, triple-strand lei for Janice.

Janice, in fact, in her role as county clerk, opened her office at midnight on the day marriage become legal for same-sex couples so that marriage licenses could be issued at 12:01 a.m.

After the wedding, they had a nice dinner reception and then took a cruise to Alaska.

Shortly thereafter, California voters passed Prop. 8, which amended that state's constitution to define marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. Although Brad and Ron’s marriage was one of the 18,000 that are still recognized, the personal impact was significant.

"What will always ring in my mind was the night it (Prop. 8) passed, which is also the night we elected our first black president, was Brad's brother on the phone," Ron recalls. "He said the nation took a huge step forward tonight and the State of California just took a huge step backward. That will always stick in my mind because that really summed it up."

"Look at some of our wedding guests," Brad continues. "Our friends Lenore and Stacy have been together for 35 years. Ken and Charley have been together for 55 years. They are all in their 80s now and to think that people that have been together that long can't get married? It's ridiculous."

Now approaching their fourth decade together, Brad and Ron admit that a long-term commitment hasn't been all honeymoon.

"It hasn't been all a bed of roses," Ron said. "There's a lot of learning that goes into having a relationship. I think one of the things you have to do is talk to the other person and that took us a long time to figure out. For a long time, we just made assumptions about what was going on with each other and that caused problems in our relationship. It was until we discovered that we really have to talk and describe to each other what was going on, what we meant by what we said and what we meant by what we did rather than let the other person assume what you meant. My advice would be to that you really have to talk and tell the other person what you want."

"Communication is an important part of any relationship, no matter who it is," Brad adds.

Food, however, has remained a constant in their lives and helps with that communication.

"I grew up in a family where everything revolved around the kitchen," Ron said. "Both my parents cooked. When people came in the door, you fed them, whoever they were. It's embedded into my system that that is the way you treat people. Food is wonderful communication between people, sitting together and talking."

Since retiring, Ron has returned to his love of cooking.

"After we moved here, we got involved with a group of people that get together and we come up with a theme and all bring a dish," Ron tells. "There are a lot of good cooks in the group and it forced me to fine-tune my work. Not because it's a competition, but because I could see how into details they were and it woke me up to paying attention to details. I can do a lot more now without going crazy. I think Brad thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown when I was only cooking for ten people."

Brad laughs as he recounts a story that illustrates how serious Ron's attention to detail in cooking has become.

"He makes so much from scratch," Brad shares. "He had a recipe that called for chipotle jelly and, since we live on the Big Island, we could not find it. But he could find the chilis, so he made the jelly. He had a recipe for ricotta cheesecake, so the first day he made the ricotta cheese (you can only get good ricotta from an Italian deli, Ron interjects) and then the next day he made the cheesecake."

Ron now makes all the household's yogurt and bread.

All the food has mandated another new passion: Exercise.

"We try to eat healthy, but I eat too much," Brad said. "We both exercise to balance the love of food."

That exercise has opened up a new social circle for the couple.

"We try to walk together, but he's so much taller than me, so with his long legs, he's a mile ahead of me in no time," Ron said.

They now walk their Hawaiian Paradise Park community with neighbors and have set up a gym in their garage. Neighbors now come over in the morning to work out to DVDs.

Now living in paradise with their social circles, good food and a marriage, the couple are still bewildered by opposition to marriage equality.

"Family can be defined many different ways and over the centuries, marriage has been defined many different ways," Brad explains. "Just because that's what they think doesn't make it right. Families come in all shapes and sizes. Our friends Ken and Charley who have been together nearly 60 years, to say that that is not a real marriage or that is not a real relationship … that’s just ridiculous." •