Out to Lunch by Stacey Ballis Read Free Book Online

mode.
    “Ben, this isn’t . . .” Andrea starts. I put my hand up.
    “Yes. This is. If not here? With us?” My voice breaks a little, surprising me. “He’s right, it sucks and we all miss her, and we all hate that she isn’t here, and we’re all angry at how unfair it is. And I’m sorry I haven’t come sooner, I just . . .” I trail off.
    They are all weeping. Lois reaches for my hand, and squeezes, pulling a hankie out of her bosom and blowing her nose like a foghorn. Eloise puts her hand on the back of my neck like a cool compress, and then gets up to find tissues for the rest of them. I’m just sort of cried out. I did a lot of late night sobbing when Aimee was first diagnosed, and again when she took her final turn for the worst. And again when we had to move her to hospice. I’m fairly well desiccated at this point.
    Andrea and Benji snuggle on the chair, and Volnay rests her chin on Benji’s shoulder.
    “We’re all miserable, and sad and pissed off, and we are just going to have to lean on each other and ask for what we need and make it okay. Because no one is more angry at this whole thing than Aimee, and if we don’t figure out how to live without her, she will never forgive us.”
    “There’s my girl,”
the Voix says.
    I look at these people, my odd family, and make a decision.
    “I’m making lunch. Who wants pasta?”
    “We have leftover caramelized cauliflower and some cannellini beans soaking,” Lois says.
    “There’s a chunk of pancetta in there,” Benji pipes in.
    “I roasted a mess of garlic yesterday,” Andrea offers.
    “Perfect,” I say, smiling, the dish coming together in my head.
    Andrea smiles and nods. Benji raises his head and grins through tears. Eloise smiles a little, and Lois slaps her meaty thigh as if an important decision has been made. I stand and head for the back of the store. Because if I’m going to help these people heal at all, it’s in the kitchen.

5

    M aking dinner for Wayne is either the easiest thing or the hardest thing on the planet, depending on how you look at it. After all, Wayne’s famous Eleven are neither difficult to procure nor annoying to prepare.
    They are just.
    So.
    Boring.
    Roasted chicken
    Plain hamburgers
    Steak cooked medium
    Pork chops
    Eggs scrambled dry
    Potatoes, preferably fries, chips, baked, or mashed, and not with anything fancy mixed in
    Chili, preferably Hormel canned
    Green beans
    Carrots
    Corn
    Iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing
    That’s it. The sum total of what Wayne will put into his maw. He doesn’t even eat fricking PIZZA for chrissakes. Not including condiments, limited to ketchup and yellow mustard and Miracle Whip, and any and all forms of baked goods . . . when it comes to breads and pastries and desserts he has the palate of a gourmand, no loaf goes untouched, no sweet unexplored. It saves him, only slightly, from being a complete food wasteland. And he has no idea that it is strange to everyone that he will eat apple pie and apple cake and apple charlotte and apple brown Betty and apple dumplings and fritters and muffins and doughnuts and crisp and crumble and buckle, but will not eat AN APPLE.
    But a good chef knows that food is supposed to be about pleasure, a gift you give to your diners. I’ve never been one of those ego-driven chefs, offended if someone asks for salt, implying my seasoning palate isn’t perfect, as opposed to acknowledging that they might just like things saltier than I do, and are entitled to that opinion. I’ve never wanted to teach my diners a lesson of some kind. I appreciate the current trend of nose-to-tail; I do think there are undiscovered pleasures to introduce to a broader market. I have converted many a guest to the joys of oxtail and halibut collar. But I hate the chefly smugness that seems to come with it, that attitude of “you aren’t a real foodie unless your desert island dish is blood sausage.”
    I suppose it’s because so much of my career was spent