Honey Glaze_Where my Heart Lays_A FULL LIFE_Spice Water
Catalog Guide:
Honey Glaze
The menu is rigid in my hands. Embossed onyx lettering on one hundred pound seashell cardstock. It’s too full of entrees and appetizers for such a small restaurant. Lamb meatballs with a honey glaze served over hand rolled pappardelle pasta. Crusted Bronzino wontons. Pear and prosciutto salad on a bed of wild long grain rice. Red velvet ganache and rosemary sorbet. The diminishing sun laces through the latticed windows of Basin & Wood, veiling the mirrors on the opposite wall with webbed light. I didn’t want to come here. Ostentatious dinners elicit bad news. But Jon insisted, and I would do ...
Where my Heart Lays
Granny reminds me that where I come from, “Sundays are for visiting with Jesus, not idle boys.” Sometimes Jamie surprises me with a visit to the pretzel shop where I work. We sit in front of the last vestiges of the mall. Once it had been a thriving center, a replacement for the dwindling tobacco business. But the arc of commerce, quick to rise and fall, meant the mall was now a gathering of vacant storefronts and retired folk using it as their all-weather track for walking laps. We perch on a bench outside the parking lot, Jamie scheming between puffs of vape exhaust. His brother’s band had ...
A FULL LIFE
A FULL LIFEDr. Samuel swished the piding curtain closed as he left. Nolla straightened the sheets and folded the frail hands over the ribcage. She reached in the bedside table for a comb and tried to arrange the hair. Nolla tidied the bedside area and made the woman’s remains as presentable as possible; it had been a long battle and Mrs. Grant’s gaunt face looked battle worn.“Mrs. Grant’s family will be coming soon; would you like me to take you to the sunroom, Mrs. Bordon?” Everyone had expected the ninety-one-year-old to die before Mrs. Grant, but you can’t predict these things with any accu...
Spice Water
The night of the biggest mistake of my life, I was trying to make dinner. I had pulled out my cook book as I searched for the recipe for chicken cacciatore. I discovered I was missing two ingredients, so I decided to look to see if there was anything I could substitute.Unfortunately, when the two missing ingredients are chicken and peppers, it pretty well destroys the chances of making anything with chicken for dinner. Oh, well.I scrounged up some vegetables and made a soup, instead. It was not as fulfilling, but definitely more doable. In early 1800's America, making soup is much easier anywa...