The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [109]
I’d popped the other lobster back in the freezer while the first one cooked, lest it wake from its stupor. I took it out again, and as I peeled back the plastic bag, I was suddenly struck with a horrible thought: What if it saw the other cooked, red lobster, hanging out on my counter right before its death? How terrifying! I quickly hid the cooked lobster inside a bowl before taking the second one out. With the stockpot still going at a rolling boil, I popped the next victim inside. This one went in slightly better than the last; it barely moved. After it was boiled, I spent the next few hours cracking open the tough shells with a hammer and my fingers (for lack of a proper tool—my oversight). It was tough work removing the chunks of meat, and after that had been accomplished, I saved the empty shells and enormous heads to make a savory broth to cook the risotto with.
My apartment reeked of seafood all afternoon. After making a run to the grocery store for some last-minute ingredients, I came back and was hit with the scent of the seafood stock I was making. I worried that this might not be the most appropriate mood-setting aroma for the night. But by evening, it seemed to have left the apartment a bit, or at least I’d gotten used to it. By then, the room had overwhelmingly taken on the savory smell of the reheating wine-braised beef cheeks.
By seven, all the core supper club members had arrived and were giving me a hand with setting the table. Jordan had brought little glass vials with flower buds and place cards with each diner’s name to set at the table. I was grateful for the help; I’d been cooking for several hours straight and my fingers were blistered and torn from all that hacking away and picking at lobster shells. Then the first guest arrived. It was Morgan. He was carrying a load of wine bottles and filled the fridge with the white wine.
“For a girl who doesn’t eat out, your fridge is kind of empty,” he noted.
I didn’t realize it until then, but I’d been so swept up in preparations that I’d eaten hardly a thing all day. I was starving. I’d baked a loaf of no-knead bread to serve with dinner and broke a chunk off of it. Slowly, the rest of the guests trickled in: Kara, George, Thaddeus, Lauren, and her French friend François, who wore thick black-rimmed glasses that made him look sort of like the French version of Buddy Holly. I was nervous about how Jordan would react to Thaddeus, and rightly so, as it turned out. Shortly after he arrived, she whispered to me in a corner that she was not at all interested. Thaddeus was definitely the most dressed up for the evening, in a black suit with a T-shirt. Lauren appeared a completely different person from the party-outfitted girl at the Pink Ball, wearing camouflage cargo pants and a thin beige tank top, her long curly brown hair tied back.
By the time everyone had their first glasses of wine, we gathered at the table. We had to scrunch close together—too close, in fact, and as I had only a long coffee table that could fit us all, we were seated on pillows on the floor. I’d imagined this might be intimate, but in reality it was pretty awkward.
The first course was my amuse-bouche, or, put simply, the bite-sized appetizer before the formal five courses began. I’d put together tiny stacks of goat cheese, roasted red pepper, and basil on crisped bread slices, and placed them for a few moments under the broiler until they were warm and oozing, with the tops lightly charred.