(unnecessary) event(s) of the season(s)

Dinner is always an event for me. I use the hyperbole "always" with no disrespect here; as a past life English major, i understand the archtype is hastened to be used, but trust me: i exaggerate not, dinner is always an event for me (even if it means peanut butter toast--its crusty bread with melty nut butter sprinkled with salt that i have been looking forward to all day (all, not another hyperbole, but an accurate measure of time that seriously got me through the day to the moment i ate, still standing, said melty PB--no J,this is dinner after all).

Take today for example: my ma and my aunt sue pulled up late morning with the futon to replace the bed in my new 30 foot square (actual hyperbolic exaggeration here...) home. To thank and repay them for providing me with something to sleep and sit on, and in doing so providing ample dancing floor space as well, i made lunch: roti, pumkin red lentil hummous, minted tomato salad, cumin laced baked eggs, eggplant za'atar, crumbled feta. A feast. At 2:00pm. Followed by an apple and some sad looking plums that i kinda felt bad for...

Dinner happened around 8:30 pm, when i actually felt hungry again. And yet i couldnt just have a little something something snack; no, it was dinner: an event.

The rest of the eggplant (it needed to be used, its fall for crying out loud, eggplant is long done...) roasted hot, charred with plenty of garlic. One of the too many squash (tis the season to be far to devoted to cooking and eating squash in one form or another; quite insistant in this case....) on my newly refurbished suite floor was in the oven with just as much garlic, plus some chilis. The two were later combined with some of the last parsley i will see for a long time, fresh walnuts that i had spent the better part of my day raking up and de-husk(?)-ing (is that what its called? that green capsule surrounding an unshelled walnut? whatever it is, the black underneath makes on hell of a mess), and the last of the feta, all on top of even more garlicky bulgar wheat. Add some chickpeas and you've got a dinner that was just too much. The eggplant thanks me for using it up, but my stomach does not.

I suppose the act of cooking is what i most desired, not the act of eating. Just as all summer long i desired that same act, as if it were the one thing that proved i was still taking care of myself, when all i really wanted was a PB sandwich (still toasted, the least of efforts i could put in), eaten in bed, perhaps finding half of it uneaten the next morning...

Really, what would have been taking care of myself would have been getting that extra bit of sleep time. And really, what an event it would be, now, even with all the seasons end free time actually having just a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. With wine. Toasted, cause its cold out there now.

(Sigh)


ps: im madly in love with the new Feist album, "Metals," particularly the song "Comfort Me." Perhaps ironic considering this post. Too ironic.

pps: J is sometimes dessert. By the spoonful. Ok, actually, i prefer honey. And i would eat that--by the spoonful--any time of day.