Morning all and welcome to October. If you look out of the window you can see the leaves are turning colors and starting to fall. It actually looks like fall outside. It is still 75 degrees which admittedly is more fall like than the 98 we had not too long ago, but through the window it looks like fall, which is a nice thing to see on an October morning. Shall we kick off the month with a new prompt? Fabulous. Timers set to fifteen minutes and off we go.
Oh there is a lot to play with here. I may take my lunch break and figure out the basic elements for this story. I like the sett up of the meal and the character. Just need to think about the right story.
Thursday, October 1st: My mouth watered at the scent.
My mouth watered at the scent. It was decadent and rich. I knew it was a bit much for a Tuesday at ten am but I couldn’t resist. I moved around my kitchen feeling the almost forgotten rhythms come back to me. It had been twenty-eight months.
Twenty-eight months of trekking through the middle of nowhere. Following trails that led nowhere, doubling back and starting again. Twenty-eight months of meals that came in pouches and all blended into one basic mushy consistency in the mind. Twenty-eight months when the best-case scenario was sitting beside a fire using a flat wooden paddle instead of silver wear to eat and being thankful that it was a seated meal and not something eaten on the move.
Thinking of this I went to the cabinet and took out a tablecloth. It was never a daily use thing. It was something given to me by my grandmother because everyone needed a good tablecloth for holidays. She embroidered it. Most holidays I joined others in the family, traveling to celebrate with them and the tablecloth stayed folded. Then there was no family and I was still not home for holidays.
I unfolded it and tried to smooth out the fold lines. I gave it up and let the lines stand. I then went to get the good China and heavy silver out. It didn’t matter if I was the only one at the table. This was the first time I had gotten to cook and eat at a table with actual plates and metal tableware in more than two years. With the plates in place I even added the silver candle sticks.
It took me a little while but I did find the candles to go in them as well. This meal was certainly special.
Table set and ready, I returned to the kitchen. Slowly the dishes came together. I laid out hot plates and trivets on my kitchen island and as the food finished I placed the hot dishes on the trivets. Deciding adding serving dishes was a bit much, especially as I would have to wash them, I fetched my plate from the table and scooped out a portion of each item onto the plate.
I resisted the urge to overload the plate. This was not about abundance and gorging. It was about a return to normal. I looked around at the flickering candles and snowy cloth. “Well maybe not normal,” I said. I placed the plate on the table and moved back to the kitchen. I double checked the burners and made certain the oven was off. I then uncorked the wine and poured myself a glass. I put the bottle back in the cabinet and took my glass to the table.
I loved the way the wine looked in the glass, the civilized feel of it. Taking a tentative sip I realized I liked the look better than the taste. The wine was sour. I shrugged, not terribly surprised. While I had someone come in and water my plants and keep my apartment dust free in the two years I was gone, there were always issues. The thermostat was set to the level of circulating the air not really keeping it a constant temperature. This bottle had been hanging out in my cabinet while I was gone and suffered through every temperature change and power outage. “I suppose I would be sour too,” I decided. Still seeing the glass, even if I wasn’t drinking from it, made the meal feel extra civilized so I left it in place.
