Good Enough to Eat (14 page)

“So are you stuffed to the gills?” he asks.

“I’m sated, but not stuffed. It is the key to life, recognizing that nothing is forbidden, but that nothing is your last meal either, so you taste everything once, but don’t gorge as if you are getting ready to hibernate. Actually it is really nice to leave a party and not feel uncomfortably full for a change!”

“Good to know. Stay here.” He gets up off the couch, and heads back to the kitchen. I shift to a cross-legged position and massage my aching feet. Nathan reappears with a plate, upon which is a lopsided mass of brown.

“I stole the recipe from your recipe box when I was over the other day. It seems to have sunk in the middle, and the frosting is lumpier than I planned, and it is probably inedible, certainly no match for that gorgeous thing Kai made, but I didn’t want you to not have this on your birthday.”

I look at the plate, the cake almost a replica of the very first one I made as a kid, leaning to one side and concave in the center, frosting chunky in places, with crumbs peeking out.

“It’s perfect,” I say. And it is.

 

 

“Good morning.” Nathan is propped up on one elbow, looking down at me.

“Good morning. Are you watching me sleep?”

“I am indeed.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

He leans over and kisses me. “Very well indeed. Tea?”

“Yes, please.”

“Coming right up.” He gets out of bed, and I watch him go, still in the jeans he wore last night, button-down shirt untucked and wrinkled.

I stretch and stand up myself, trying to pull the wrinkles out of my dress. I catch a look in the large floor mirror propped against Nathan’s bedroom wall and shake my head. I am forty years old. And last night a wonderful man actually baked me a cake, which despite being sort of homely, was really delicious. We talked and talked and he kissed me, and when I started to pull away he asked me to stay. To let him hold me. Said he wanted to wake up to me.

And I spent the night mentally fitful, afraid to fall too deeply asleep, afraid that if I gave myself over to sleep I might give myself over to other things and hating how much that frightens me.

“Breakfast, milady,” Nathan says behind me. I turn and see him standing with a tray, two mugs, and two pieces of cake.

I smile at him. “Breakfast of champions.”

“This is either a treat or a punishment, but if you really liked the cake, then it will be good, and if you didn’t, it’ll teach you to never lie to me about my cooking!”

“I know better than that! My grandmother always used to tell this story about my dad. . . . When he was little he used to go to Decatur to visit a friend of his, and the family had this great housekeeper who cooked for them. Anyway, apparently the first time he went to visit, she made a big coconut cake for dessert. And to be polite he said he loved it, even though he really doesn’t like coconut at all.”

“Let me guess . . . every time he went to visit?”

“Yep, coconut cake.”

Nathan laughs. “So this?”

I reach my hand out. “Definitely not coconut cake.”

He hands me a plate. I ignore every part of me that tells me that cake for breakfast is a slippery slope, and take what is offered me. It seems the least I can do.

 

 

“Close the damn oven, Teensy, you’re messing with the mojo.” Kai snaps the oven door shut with his foot, and then smacks my butt with a spatula.

“No respect for the boss around here, I swear to God!”

Kai looks over at me and makes the universal sign of the drama violin. “Look, you were the top of the braising class, as you are quick to point out to me at the drop of a hat. And you were the top because of that there brisket, so for the love of all that is holy, stop fussing and let it do its magic. You still have to do the orecchiette salad, the sweet-and-sour slaw, and the butternut squash is almost ready to come out of the other oven. The party isn’t even for two more days!”

“Okay, first of all, it isn’t a party, it’s a Passover Seder. Second of all, it’s a big deal, because I haven’t seen Nate’s family since D.C., and while that was a strange fluke sort of meeting, this is a real ‘meet the family’ girlfriend sort of thing. The fact that his mom even trusts me to make the main dish is MAJOR. And every family has their own style of Jew food. Some make their brisket sweet and sour and tomatoey, some make it salty and oniony. Some people make matzo kugel and some make potato kugel. And everyone wants THEIR version. It’s like Thanksgiving. No matter how good the food is at anyone else’s house, it isn’t really your Thanksgiving unless the food is the same thing you grew up with.”

“Are you people having the Thanksgiving argument again?” Delia asks as she floats into the kitchen, tying a pristine white apron around her wide hips as she moves. Delia has been coming in earlier and earlier these days, watching more carefully, asking more questions. I don’t know if she even realizes how much she is getting herself ready to leave us. She claims she is coming in early because there is a new woman in the shelter with four kids under the age of three, all of whom are constantly crying. But I know that every minute she spends in the kitchen with me and Kai takes us one minute closer to the time when she moves up and out. I’m at once grateful for her company and sad at what it hearkens.

“We aren’t having the Thanksgiving argument,” I say.

“She is never going to let me live down that stupid Thanksgiving,” Kai says.

I can’t help but take the bait. “You made prime rib!”

“It was delicious,” Kai says, shrugging.

“IT WAS BEEF! You can’t have beef on Thanksgiving, except for appetizers like meatballs or something. You have TURKEY on Thanksgiving.” Last Thanksgiving I spent with Phil and Kai, since I was orphaned and separated and Gilly couldn’t make it in from London. Everything was delicious, but it was like a dinner party and not Thanksgiving. The prime rib wasn’t the only anomaly. No mashed potatoes or stuffing or sweet potatoes with marshmallows or green bean casserole. He had acorn squash with cippolini onions and balsamic glaze. Asparagus almondine. Corn custard with oyster mushrooms. Wild rice with currants and pistachios and mint. All amazing and perfectly cooked and balanced, and not remotely what I wanted for Thanksgiving. When I refused to take leftovers, his feelings were hurt, and when he got to the store two days later, he let me know.

“Look,” Kai says with infinite patience. “For a week we prepped for the Thanksgiving pickups.” He ticks off on his fingers the classic menu we developed together for the customers who wanted a traditional meal without the guilt. “Herb-brined turkey breasts with apricot glaze and roasted shallot jus. Stuffing muffins with sage and pumpkin seeds. Cranberry sauce with dried cherries and port. Pumpkin soup, and healthy mashed potatoes, and glazed sweet potatoes with orange and thyme, and green beans with wild mushroom ragu, and roasted brussels sprouts, and pumpkin mousse and apple cake. We cooked Thanksgiving and tasted Thanksgiving and took Thanksgiving leftovers home at the end of the day. I just thought you would be SICK OF TURKEY!”

The three of us collapse into laughter, Delia wiping her eyes at Kai’s fake indignation.

“You two. There is no cure for you two,” she says. “What can I do?”

“You can shred the cabbage if you want; I’m doing sweet-and-sour slaw,” I say, catching my breath.

“Oh, good, that’s a new one I don’t know,” she says, washing her hands at the prep sink.

I guide Delia through the slaw: green cabbage with fennel and green apple and a light dressing of rice wine vinegar, sugar, lime juice, canola oil, and caraway seeds. Kai mashes the butternut squash with applesauce, nutmeg, grains of paradise, and cinnamon. I work on a light pasta salad that I have been playing with, orecchiette pasta with white beans, chopped celery, green peas, and feta in red wine vinaigrette with fresh oregano. The case gets filled, Kai takes off, the doors get opened, and we begin to serve customers. While Delia takes a phone order, I head into the kitchen and take the brisket out of the oven. It is mahogany brown and juicy, and perfumes the kitchen immediately, the scent wafting out into the store.

“What is that smell?” Delia says, eyes closing, inhaling deeply.

“That, is hope,” I say.

“Ellie, close your ears,” Nathan’s dad, Mike, says to his wife. She feigns placing her hands over the sides of her head. “That is the best brisket I have ever tasted.” On his other side, his mother, a woman whose name I don’t know since she insists that I call her Mawmaw like the rest of the family, smacks his arm playfully. He winces. “Sorry, Mom, of course, not as good as yours.” Ellie smacks his other arm. “Nate, want to help with the dishes before these women kill me? You too, Josh. We’ll let you lovely ladies relax.” Mike stands up, grabs an armload of dishes, and Nathan follows suit obligingly. Josh, Nathan’s brother-in-law, kisses Jeannie, Nathan’s sister, on the forehead and also heads for the kitchen. Ellie motions for us to all follow her to the living room while the guys work on clearing the table. When we are out of earshot and comfortably settled on the couches, Ellie turns to me.

“He’s right, you know, it’s much better than mine.”

“Mine too.” Mawmaw sighs. “Sort of like my mother used to make. And tender enough for even me to chew!” She grins, clacking her clearly fake teeth together joyfully.

“I’m never going to have a version,” Jeannie says dramatically. “Alternating between Jewish holidays here and at Josh’s, there’s no need for me to bother to learn to cook.”

I pause, not sure how to broach this. “Josh’s family is Jewish?” Joshua Rodriguez is, by his own admission, a melting pot, with a Mexican father and a mother who is part African American, part Native American, and part Cuban. I assumed that he had converted when he married Jeannie.

Jeannie laughs. “Yep! There is actually a large Jewish population in Mexico City, where Josh’s dad was raised, people who were trying to immigrate to the States and got rerouted for visa problems. And his mom was adopted by a Jewish family as an infant. Isn’t it awesome? I got all the shock value of bringing home a mixed-race guy, but still got to marry a Jew!”

Ellie smacks her daughter with a throw pillow, and Mawmaw mutters in Yiddish under her breath. Ellie turns to me. “We aren’t that kind of family, and frankly, we have always liked Josh a little bit more than our daughter.” Jeannie smacks her mother back with the pillow, and Mawmaw shrugs her shoulders and says, “Meshugge,” which I think means “These women are nuts.”

I love these people. I knew I liked Nate’s parents and Mawmaw in D.C. Jeannie and Josh had a conflicting engagement, so they weren’t there. But having spent this lovely evening with them, I think I am falling almost as in love with them as I am with Nate. They are funny and smart and they all like each other so much, not just family love, which is obviously there, but genuine
liking
. Sometimes when you go to someone else’s house for a family event, you feel on the outside, you don’t know any of the stories, you don’t understand the private jokes, but these people have taken such care to tell the whole story for my benefit, to let me into the inner circle, to draw me out and find out about my life and my family. And the nervousness I usually feel in these situations, the desire to withdraw and just observe, all of that fell away the moment I got here, and I have been more present than I have ever been in such a new situation. I’m oddly proud of myself.