My favorite food
My favorite food……
Tough subject…. I suppose if I talk about my favorite food, I will have to settle on, like, just one. Talk about Mission Impossible. There is no way in sunshine I can settle, I won’t be forced! Not today, when it is my presentation day! Today I can seethe at the topic, be rebellious, toss authority out the window, and write about MY FAVORITE MEAL.
I am not much for drinking. Seriously, I just don’t. However, there have been one or two times in my life that I have imbibed to excess, both surrounding the birth of my big sister’s kids.
A case of beer each, cigars as long as we could see to light them, and a fire on the side of the pond. My brother-in-law and I were going to bring his son in right! We were determined that my first drunk, at the age of 17, would be memorable. I just wish I could remember more of it. I seem to recall, only vaguely, running after a cat that had the misfortune to show up during our celebration. I don’t know what the cat had done, but I was angry, and was going to teach him a thing or two. Never caught him, still don’t know why it was important.
The next morning, I regained consciousness on the living room floor at my sister’s house. It tasted like that cat I had chased the previous night had slept in my mouth. The carpet was scratchy on my bare back, and I felt the muscles of my back begin to complain over my other ailments that maybe I should have gone as far as the couch before the big crash. I could feel the pounding in my head before ever I opened my eyes. I could actually hear my eyelashes growing out of my head…it sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then, I made the mistake of opening my eyes. Light seared my brain, and I slammed them shut with a sound and feeling like someone had hit me with a steel folding chair. The floor pulsed, threatening to push me out of reality into a strange, painful universe, but I fought it and rolled over onto my knees. Two hours, three cups of coffee, two aspirins and a glass of grapefruit juice later, I was able to claim semi-consciousness. Little did I know I was incubating an award-winning case of the Flu.
It struck like a trash truck. I spent the next three days praying to the porcelain goddess. Selling Buicks. Wishing for death. I couldn’t hold water, I couldn’t hold tea, Lord have mercy, would You please kill me! There was no relief for the foolish. I was a limp sack, a Petri dish for that which assailed me. I let Flu have its way with me, too weak to fight.
Then, after a week, I had a familiar feeling. I was hungry, a feeling I had forgotten I was capable of experiencing. I poured myself out of the couch, floated into the kitchen, and opened the cabinet. There, on the bottom shelf was a can of chicken broth. No noodles, no meat, just the juice. Someone had juiced a chicken, and I was going to make the most of it. I scrounged around the kitchen as the soup heated on the stove, looking for crackers. I finally found some, not saltines but oyster crackers, the kind that look like little turtle shells. I took the broth off of the stove; left it in the pot, grabbed a spoon, and sat down at the kitchen table. I sprinkled crackers into the pot, little turtle shells floating gaily on the surface of the juiced chicken. I tentatively took a spoonful and sipped it. Waited. I had no sense of impending rejection, and got brave. I sipped another spoonful, this time with a soggy turtle floating on the broth. It worked out just fine. I was eating. I was in Heaven. I would Live.
Tough subject…. I suppose if I talk about my favorite food, I will have to settle on, like, just one. Talk about Mission Impossible. There is no way in sunshine I can settle, I won’t be forced! Not today, when it is my presentation day! Today I can seethe at the topic, be rebellious, toss authority out the window, and write about MY FAVORITE MEAL.
I am not much for drinking. Seriously, I just don’t. However, there have been one or two times in my life that I have imbibed to excess, both surrounding the birth of my big sister’s kids.
A case of beer each, cigars as long as we could see to light them, and a fire on the side of the pond. My brother-in-law and I were going to bring his son in right! We were determined that my first drunk, at the age of 17, would be memorable. I just wish I could remember more of it. I seem to recall, only vaguely, running after a cat that had the misfortune to show up during our celebration. I don’t know what the cat had done, but I was angry, and was going to teach him a thing or two. Never caught him, still don’t know why it was important.
The next morning, I regained consciousness on the living room floor at my sister’s house. It tasted like that cat I had chased the previous night had slept in my mouth. The carpet was scratchy on my bare back, and I felt the muscles of my back begin to complain over my other ailments that maybe I should have gone as far as the couch before the big crash. I could feel the pounding in my head before ever I opened my eyes. I could actually hear my eyelashes growing out of my head…it sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then, I made the mistake of opening my eyes. Light seared my brain, and I slammed them shut with a sound and feeling like someone had hit me with a steel folding chair. The floor pulsed, threatening to push me out of reality into a strange, painful universe, but I fought it and rolled over onto my knees. Two hours, three cups of coffee, two aspirins and a glass of grapefruit juice later, I was able to claim semi-consciousness. Little did I know I was incubating an award-winning case of the Flu.
It struck like a trash truck. I spent the next three days praying to the porcelain goddess. Selling Buicks. Wishing for death. I couldn’t hold water, I couldn’t hold tea, Lord have mercy, would You please kill me! There was no relief for the foolish. I was a limp sack, a Petri dish for that which assailed me. I let Flu have its way with me, too weak to fight.
Then, after a week, I had a familiar feeling. I was hungry, a feeling I had forgotten I was capable of experiencing. I poured myself out of the couch, floated into the kitchen, and opened the cabinet. There, on the bottom shelf was a can of chicken broth. No noodles, no meat, just the juice. Someone had juiced a chicken, and I was going to make the most of it. I scrounged around the kitchen as the soup heated on the stove, looking for crackers. I finally found some, not saltines but oyster crackers, the kind that look like little turtle shells. I took the broth off of the stove; left it in the pot, grabbed a spoon, and sat down at the kitchen table. I sprinkled crackers into the pot, little turtle shells floating gaily on the surface of the juiced chicken. I tentatively took a spoonful and sipped it. Waited. I had no sense of impending rejection, and got brave. I sipped another spoonful, this time with a soggy turtle floating on the broth. It worked out just fine. I was eating. I was in Heaven. I would Live.
posted by Joel F at
9:32 AM
2 Comments:
This would make a good story for your book. You could explode the cat portion. I loved it!
By
Adam, at 2:26 PM
"Someone had juiced a chicken."--I wrote that line in my notebook. It's a keeper.
By
Donna Sewell, at 5:53 PM
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