I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [37]
I don’t remember the last time I cooked. I used to cook, a looooong time ago, when I had no money and no choice. I was a lousy cook—big surprise, I know— but I cooked. Nothing very fancy. I mean, I could toss a salad (and no, not like in prison, for a guy named Sheet Rock, but with fresh greens), and I did, for a time, bake my own bread. No one believes I did; even the people who watched me do it think I am lying. But I did. Wheat bread, mostly. No baguettes or anything else that might require a little thought or energy—just run-of-the-mill wheat bread. It was tasty, but it was never a full-blown loaf. I never got it to fully rise. Every loaf I made was always somewhere between matzoh and Pepperidge Farm. Still, it was bread. You could cut it with a knife and put a pat of butter on it. It worked like the butter delivery system it was meant to be. It used to give me a great deal of satisfaction.
What’s happened to the world? When I made bread, I knew it was shit, but at least other bread was good for you. Now people say that bread isn’t good for you. When did the geniuses of the world decide that? Where did they hold that meeting? It’s bread, for fuck’s sake, it’s the staff of life. Where are the Bible beaters now? How come they aren’t defending bread’s right to be eaten? Now if you want to eat a sandwich, you need to jog, absercize, or elliptiodalize. Oh, spiteful bread with all your stinking carbs, where did you go wrong? What happened to the Harry the Homemaker who used to dwell within me? Did all the carbs kill him?
Willie and Jenny take such joy in preparing the meal. And for my part, I take great joy in eating it. Cooking, I just don’t have the time for it anymore, but boy, do I have time to eat the whole day away.
At the table, the conversation focuses on the food. The table begins to hum with the satisfaction that comes from a fine meal. The room is filled with the purring sounds of satisfied eaters.
“Really, it’s not that difficult. All you do is take out the bone marrow and slowly cook in a port reduction and then let the short ribs marinate in that for a week.”
“Where do you two get the fucking time to do this?” I almost shout at them. But then I remember that there are tender ears at the table as well as my own, so I merely wonder to myself. All I know is, I would have an easier time putting the short ribs back in the cow than I would preparing the dish that sits before me.
Jenny’s sister, Jilian, prepares the dessert. It is, as usual, stupefying. It’s always a sensational sugar delivery system. Sometimes it even includes sugar spun into a work of art. I weep. She has an infant, and she’s a master pastry chef with a full-time job. Isn’t there an Olympics for people like her? People who can do all sorts of things really well and spin sugar at the same time? It makes a lot more sense than those folks who cross-country ski and then stop and use the rifle they’re carrying to shoot at targets. What the fuck is that supposed to be about other than some kind of sick World War II Scandinavian flashback?
This time we are having tiramisu, and there is a bonus dessert, which I have forgotten, because of the obvious sugar shock I went through. But it was worth it. If I were told I had to get diabetes for a major movie role, I would have Jilian prepare my dessert every night.
After dinner and coffee and some more terrific conversation, it’s time for me to go. I rise slowly from the table. One last time I toast my hosts and all who have gathered together.
I am overwhelmed by this sense of family that I am allowed to glimpse and share in. It has taken a bit of the sting out of the loneliness I always feel on this day. Yet it makes me yearn for what I know I shall never have. A family of my own. Thank God there’s another meal ahead