Dinner out last night, pizza of the very best aroma, flavors, colors. Pepper living green and pungent hot; sausage wafting scents of garlic, fennel, sauce of cheery ripe tomatoes, anchovies instead of dreaded salt, and broccoli and mushrooms, well, they just laid there. So much good stuff to cover evil high-carb base of bread, serving just to hold and get a grip. And salads, oh my Lord, the salads, creamed with famous house homemade dressing.
Friends with tears between the courses, crying at a look, a word. Two friends are missing; one gone by divorce the other taken from us much too soon to talk or point it out. To everyone around we looked to be three couples. We were in fact, two couples and two singles. They probably wondered why the women hugged and cried.
Tonight, another friend is coming to our dinner table. Shrimp stuffed with scallops, clams and mushrooms dabbed with bits of greens and whites that hopefully are herbs and spices. Potatoes, super salad, and lemon slices carved benignly laying by the dipping butter bowls. No reason for the watching of the diets, not tonight; perhaps there should be red wine, but there’s white. Etiquette rules my table, not Dr. Arkins now, but fresh fruit is steeping in a blend of imported sour cherry syrup and dry sherry. No, no ice cream with this, but Italian lemon ice. All right then, there will be fresh whipped cream to top it off.
Neha of Wanderlust is taking to her wandering again, to Seton Hill to feed her lust for knowledge. We must, at least, make her know she’s always welcome back, if hunger of another sort could lure her back. But then, I suppose we are just appetizers for the seekers of gourmet; but then again, it is the proper way to serve them.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I’ve never had better shrimp in my entire life. Thank you Susan. It’s not just the food that I will miss.
Good friends, good food, sharing at table, surely a Eucharist.