The Food of Love

Saturday, Feb. 14, 2004 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

When Jer is home, everything he does reminds me of how I miss him when he's gone.

He is making toast this morning. He has brought with him a "hearty" nine-grain bread that makes a crackly toast that'll scrub the plaque off your teeth and make your gums bleed, but it's quite delicious and no more healthier for you than a buttered croissant. We have a big fat sassy tomato that has been ripening for a week on the kitchen counter, ripening for this moment when Jer cuts off what he needs, four slices so that he can have two slices from the biggest, roundest part of the tomato. Then he reassembles what's left of the tomato, wraps it in plastic, and tucks it away in the fridge. He's making the simplest of all tomato sandwiches: toast, Miracle Whip, and two tomato slices. One big round slice is laid on whole, the other is cut into four variably shaped and sized pieces that fit neatly around the first slice. The pieces are cemented in place by a generous spackling of Miracle Whip. The sandwich is cut diagonally, and he offers me half. He always eats the two 45-degree-angled corners in the first two bites. I do the same because I don't want to miss even the simplest act of congruence with him.

He likes cocoa in the morning. He dislikes coffee at any time. I make cocoa for both of us, three heaping spoonfuls each in two big mugs of microwave-heated water, cooled to the preferred temperature by a jot of half-and-half. This is new to him�he's accustomed to watching me assemble my morning cocoa from diverse arcane elements: milk, water, sugar, Van Houten cacao, Callebaut cocoa, a lump of whatever dark chocolate is at hand, sea salt and cayenne pepper�"What's this?" he asks, picking up the cannister emblazoned with the feathered frog logo* of 'Zaziel Enterprises.

"The newest addition to our line of fine comestibles," I tell him.

I made the mistake of serving a cup of this cocoa I have named Chocolate Californication (otherwise know as High Blood Sugar Sex Magick) to She-Ra, the Princess of Power. "Goddess Help Us!" she cried, "We must put this in a bag and sell it!" Which is, bless her li'l ol' mercenary heart, her standard response to everything I feed her. She harbors more vaulting ambitions for the Food Division of 'Zaziel Enterprises than I do (which really should not bring to mind vaults of great height, since I am not an ambitious creature). For months, the princess nagged me for a dry mix that would make a cup of chocolate by simply adding hot water. Trouble was, my Chocolate Californication had no standard recipe, just spoonfuls of this, that and the other thing, splashes of milk and water, plus pinches of salt and pepper. Many experiments later, I had sorted out the exact proportions, but finding the right dry milk was a problem. Nonfat dry milk was no good, I knew it would be no good, I should never have even tried it. To me, fatless milk has no place in the universe. Milk is created by mothers for their babies and babies need fat. For adults, the ingestion of milk is all about the taste and the taste is all about the cream. Milk with no cream, milk with no fat, has no taste and neither do the people who drink it.

While nonfat dry milk is fucking simplistic to find, dry whole milk is not, unless you know Filipino-type persons, who likely have a can of instant�nea leche entera en polvo in their cupboards. Luckily, I do know Filipino-type persons, most notable among them is my buddy Bast, the Lunch Bunch's former Resident Vestal Virgin and currently the best-beloved concubine of Jaime, the Boy From Ipanema and a former Great Love of My Life.� Long ago, like more than three years ago, Bast lived with me, chastely, for a month and a can of instant whole milk powder lived on for many months after he left, until I finally threw it out because it was all lumpy and yellow and sour-smelling. So I knew there existed such a thing as instant�nea leche entera, and I quested for it until I found it, and made the Magick complete.

And now we're selling cans of it to the same people who buy our cookies. I fear the day is coming too soon when She-Ra the Princess of Power will mount a campaign to hassle the finer grocery stores of the Southland. I don't think she will be able to rest content until she's sees 'Zaziel's Chocolate Californication on the shelves at Trader Joe's and 7-Eleven.

~

* The logo is vaguely based on Mayan hieroglyphics as designed by Jim Fitzpatrick if he had been born a Haida Indian. Vague is the operative word here. It looks vaguely southwestern, vaguely northwestern, vaguely Celtic, and people have identified it as a dragon, a lion, an owl, a crouching gecko (can a gecko crouch?) and a porcupine. I was hoping people would see the three sixes I incorporated into the design and create web pages about the Mark of the Beast found on baked goods in southern California, thus garnering me tons of free publicity. No such luck. Apparently the 666 looks like nothing more than a series of innocuous curlicues. No luck either with the portrait of the Virgin Mary. If you turn the logo 72 degrees to the right, the image of the Mother of Our Savior appears, but no one has seen that yet, or if they did, they failed to alert the news media. Most people see a frog if they've been told it's a frog. When people ask me why a frog, I answer by asking, rhetorically,"Viaduct?"

Rhett Torick has a lot to answer for.

� Bast and Jaime will be here tonight. Tonight is the Lunch Bunch's Semi-Annual Valentine's Day Massacree and Marshmallow Cook-Off. Today I'm resting up for it, avoiding meat, cruciferous vegetables, coffee and garlic, eating oranges and raw almonds, and drinking Pom (pomegranate/mango or pomegranate/blueberry) and lots of water to improve my taste.

~

She sent me quotes perfect for the day. These are what I would inscribe on conversation hearts�in very very tiny letters:

"To prepare for love, learn to run through snow, leaving no footprints." - Turkish proverb

"Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other." - Rainer Maria Rilke

"Love is like a well in the wilderness where time watches over the wandering lightning." - Pablo Neruda

"We are not the same person this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person." - W. Somerset Maugham

"Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for a second time in the history of the world, humans will have discovered fire." -Teilhard de Chardin

"To love is to tilt with the lightning, two bodies routed by a single honey's sweet." - Pablo Neruda

"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new." - Ursula K. Le Guin

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more." - Erica Jong

"When one does not love too much, one does not love enough." - Blaise Pascal

"Until you have been in love, you cannot become yourself." - Emily Dickinson

"When I love, I love so much, it's dangerous." - Nicole Kidman

"Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal." - Sark

"Love asks you beautiful, unanswerable questions." - Carl Sandburg

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

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