Enough Asparagus

I feel as if I’d met you yesterday though it’s been thirty years and at my age that means I die tomorrow or at best the day after. So what shall we do this blue evening streaked with gray? If I’m to cook you one last dinner, I want to know you’ll enjoy it. If only you weren’t so complex! You love the simple joy of something simple, simply done, I know: a fish intact, its organs and bones excused, brushed with butter and heated until happy. That said, you also love a dish of flesh that fills your mouth with blood and tastes like something running for its life. Shall I start with what agrees with you or should I try again to make you resolve your dispute with asparagus? I think I know your answer. Let’s not argue with dinner. There is a time, or better an age, for picking fights with appetizers and waging war on desserts, but we have long outlived that age and found our peace with meals. From now on let’s try something new just once, if at all, and if we don’t love it immediately, leave it for the kids. I’ve tracked down something from the yard you might like, burrowing it was beneath the porch a day from entering our lives; I think it will grill nicely. I’ve paired it with the fruit I foraged from the back of your closet that has almost turned to syrup. Before I’ve finished cooking, something else will turn up, I’m sure. Every room can be harvested. We scarcely need to shop, now that all we’ve planted has come into season. The table is set. The candles sparkle like something new. I stand behind your chair in a bloody apron ready to push you in.

Copyright © October 03, 2008 David Hodges