Solobsession
Dec. 8th, 2005 09:34 pmThe other night, a couple of friends came to dinner. They hadn’t been here before: I work with her, but I hadn’t met the boyfriend in any meaningful sense, and neither of them had met my wife.
It was a very good evening: easy chatter, relaxed drinking, lots of food.
He had said that she was fussy, obsessive, that she ate her food in a particular order: eating each type separately, and saving her favourite for last – so she would eat all the peas, then all the potatoes, then …
I wondered what she would do with the meal I had cooked: a rich vegetable casserole, with mushrooms and courgettes in a tomato and wine sauce. With onions and garlic. All mixed up. And served with a baked potato. I couldn’t see how she could eat each vegetable in order; I was curious to see what she would do.
What she did was intricately sift through the sauce, filing the pieces of vegetable away to different parts of the plate. It was a piece of seminal filing: I couldn’t have done it so accurately. And then she ate each pile.
It was fascinating. She said she loved the food, so it must have tasted ok. (Unless she was just being polite; which would be quite out of character.)
It was a very good evening: easy chatter, relaxed drinking, lots of food.
He had said that she was fussy, obsessive, that she ate her food in a particular order: eating each type separately, and saving her favourite for last – so she would eat all the peas, then all the potatoes, then …
I wondered what she would do with the meal I had cooked: a rich vegetable casserole, with mushrooms and courgettes in a tomato and wine sauce. With onions and garlic. All mixed up. And served with a baked potato. I couldn’t see how she could eat each vegetable in order; I was curious to see what she would do.
What she did was intricately sift through the sauce, filing the pieces of vegetable away to different parts of the plate. It was a piece of seminal filing: I couldn’t have done it so accurately. And then she ate each pile.
It was fascinating. She said she loved the food, so it must have tasted ok. (Unless she was just being polite; which would be quite out of character.)