Among the many other things I did today instead of blog–like put in seven hours in the shop, finalize a paper, and tidy up the house a bit–was to prepare an impromptu meal for friends and spend a relaxed few hours in sharing food and laughter. Not many people can pull jumbo shrimp from their freezer as I can, but one of my specialties is stuffed shrimp, with a clam, crabmeat, mushroom, onion and garlic stuffing that leaves little room for breadcrumbs. Baked acorn squash, potatoes, salad and an apple pie and of course, my homemade wine from ’98 (an excellent year) was good enough for this informal get-together but the real delight was suggested by my husband and finished off the evening with a flair; the pomegranate was broken into, its leathery skin peeled back to reveal sparkling rubies of kernelled fruit. Broken only into halves, one for each side of the table, we shared in a most primitive manner the separation of the sections and the eating of the tart and juicy fruit.
And the feeling, as in reading an extraordinary author’s work, was simply a contented wow.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology