Beef Stew in Red Wine (I)

Beef Stew in Red Wine (I)

I kept an archive of the holiday dinner photos I took throughout the years.  When I went through them I found pictures of Grandma in the kitchen, wrapped in her bright orange apron, stirring or chopping something.  I also had pictures of Sunday dinners and summer picnics, birthday parties and anniversaries.  

They released Grandma from the hospital a week before her birthday.  She told the family she didn’t want a big celebration.  In fact she didn’t want any.  She just wanted peace and quiet.  She moved in to my parents house.  I came by after work to spend time with her.  

It’s just old age she would say.  It’s inevitable she would shrug.  She was a force to reckon with, but the medication made her weak.  She would have me read to her.  Said she liked to hear my voice.  She would look off into the distance and forget the present.  

Grandma kept her rosary under her pillow.  Neither of her grandchildren grew up Catholic.  I never saw her pray using her rosary.  

We each find our own way.  Some of us question more than others.  Some are content to believe what they’ve been told.  I don’t know what Grandma believed.  She never taught us.  We never asked her.  She was always so strong and confident and hearty.  She was our pillar of strength.  But life doesn’t last forever.  What were we to do when she left?

Don’t you mourn, she told me.  Don’t you dare mourn.  You’ve had your time with me and I with you.  You remember our times together, the good and the bad.  If you want to honor me then remember me.  Don’t mourn and don’t waste your money on flowers at my grave.  Plant me a red maple.  Water it so it can grow, and I’ll be happy.

Grandma, what do you believe?

She sighed.  Not everybody’s world is a big one.  Life is unexpected.  And the family that you have may not love you more than the family you find.

She reached for my hand.  Don’t be afraid of mistakes.  Everybody makes them.  Learn from them, but don’t let them keep you from trying something.  If you’re not happy with yourself, it doesn’t matter who around you is happy.  It’s not worth it.  You live your life.  Don’t let people make you live their life for them.  We’ve all been given one life apiece.  They have theirs and you have yours.  Family will be nosy but be understanding.  

Do you wish you could do some things over?

She chuckled.  That’s a no-brainer.  

Are you happy with your life, Grandma?

It came out all right, I suppose.  

The day after the funeral Rainier arrived home.  He rushed back from a business meeting in Tokyo.  My eyes were puffy when I met him at the airport.  That day I told him I didn’t want to get married.  I didn’t want to follow tradition.  He was ok with it.  He didn’t try to persuade me.  We drove home and he held me under the covers.

It might have appeared to be a big mistake in my family’s opinion.  But when Rainier moved out I couldn’t have been more relieved that we weren’t married.  Maybe we shouldn’t even have been together in the first place.  But how were we supposed to know?  Maybe we did know.  

The pictures are scattered on my computer screen.  I remember you, Grandma.  Every day.  There hasn’t been a day that goes by that I haven’t thought of you.  

When a co-worker, Chandra, went through her divorce it was a kind of a death.  She would arrive at work without make-up and dark circles under her eyes.  She had three children all in grade school.  I didn’t know what to say to her.  Others consoled her and had a ready word of encouragement or ammunition to blast her ex.  She had people to go have coffee with or meet for lunch.  Chandra was a pretty girl.  Average height with sandy blonde hair.  Her children gave her hips.  

One day after work, after reviewing thousands of images, I found her in the lounge staring blankly at the wall.  

He doesn’t want the kids, she said.  How am I going to take care of them all by myself?  I don’t make as much as he does.  I can’t afford the house.  

It was too much to absorb and sort out on a Thursday evening.  

I went home and got out the big blue Dutch oven.  I love the sight of it, but have used it only occasionally.  That night it would help me do something good.  On the way home I stopped by the grocery store and picked up two pounds of flatiron steak and a bottle of red wine.  I turned on Puccini and cubed the steaks to be heated in the Dutch oven with olive oil and butter. 

I turned on Puccini and cubed the steaks to be heated in the Dutch oven with olive oil and butter. 

The Cake that Failed

The Cake that Failed

“We need to capture the essence of the orange.  Such energy.  Capture its powerful curvature, the energy of its skin, its contours and nuances.”

I peeled the orange.  Placed some of the flesh inside the cradle of it’s peeling, brushed away some of the mess but kept the pith and skin fragments.  I separated an orange segment and squeezed the fruit until its juice sprinkled the remaining segments and stained the white tablecloth.  I grabbed a few leaves of sage and arranged it with the bright peel.  I snapped a shot just as the instructor came upon me.

“What is this?”  He waved his hand.

“Edible fruit.”

Jason and I met in photography class.  Ever since the Orange Day we bonded quickly.  My parents hoped he would be my choice, but Grandma knew Jason was never a contender.  We gave it a shot, just to make sure.  But the heart wasn’t in it, not for that kind of love anyway.

We met up at a bagel shop.  It was a rare day that he was not working and got to watch his girls for the day.  We ordered our bagel breakfast sandwiches and went to the nearby park for the girls to play.  

“Got a request to do an engagement shoot in Maui.”

“Jealous.”

“Thank you.  I’m going to take the girls with me.”

“Yeah?  That’d be great.  They’d love it.”

“Oh yeah.  Sophia’s part fish.”

“Dee going too?”

“No, she’s working on a big case.  It’ll go before the court by the time I need to be in Maui.”

“Too bad.”

“She’s really excited though.  Think they’ll make her partner after this one.”

“Good for her.  She’s worked very hard.”

“You?”

“I have a crazy lady who thinks she can cook.  I couldn’t even get her recipe to work.”

“Why don’t you do a cookbook?”

“Not interested.”

“Oh really?  I bet you are.”

I looked at him sideways.  “No.  I’m not.”

“Come on.  You cook all the time.  Your cookbook would be stellar.  If the recipes suck, it’d still be a work of art.”

“I’m a photographer.  You betcha it’s going to look like art.”

“What about all those recipes your grandmother made?  There must have been hundreds.”

I nodded.  “Yep, she had quite the collection.  Most of them were stored in her head.  I don’t remember a meal she didn’t cook.”

“It’d be an awesome tribute to her to put all her recipes together.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“Did you do that on purpose?”

“Do what?”

Grandma baked a cake every year for the annual bazaar.  People fought over the cake walk just to get her cake.  She made a different cake each year, and each year she kept its identity a secret until the great unveiling at the bazaar.  It’s not always the prettiest cake that wins, she said.  Her greatest rival was Mrs. Sue Beth Gowans.  She loved to dress her cakes and make it stand out like a new hat.  One year Grandma had me bake the cake for the bazaar.  I was sixteen and very nervous.  She handed me a recipe card the night before the cake walk.  It was an old favorite of hers that a close girl friend had shared with her when they were both young and newly weds.  Grandma had baked the cake a few times, not often but enough that I remembered it.  As a child I wasn’t much for cakes without frosting or icing, and this cake had neither.  It looked boring.  I never even tried eating it.  I was rather disappointed that she gave me this recipe.  I couldn’t even change her mind.

Under her supervision I baked the cake.  We entered it for the cake walk under my name.  Mrs. Sue Beth Gowans had made a gorgeous raspberry cream cake and studded it with plump red raspberries.  It was a no-brainer which cake was going to be fought over that year.  Sure enough, the ladies hackled and raised their voices at each other over the raspberry cream.  Mrs. Sue Beth Gowans beamed like a plumed peacock.  My cake was next to last to be picked; the other one was a store bought Black Forrest.  Judge Harrison’s wife chose it.  People were disappointed that Grandma didn’t contribute a cake.  A day or two after the bazaar Judge Harrison’s wife called our house and asked to talk to me.  She raved on and on about how wonderful the cake was.   At first she was of a mind to give the cake away to someone or bring it to tea at a friend’s house.  As it turned out she ended up hosting the tea and served the cake.  Her guests absolutely loved it.  The lady who won the fight over the raspberry cream declared that this cake had nothing on that fancy one.  

Grandma only winked when I told her what Judge Harrison’s wife had said.  I wished I would have tasted the cake.  In my diary I had named it The Cake that Failed.  I don’t recall Grandma ever making that cake again.

“I don’t know how I’ll be able to get the recipes,” I told Jason.

“Why not?”

The girls were on the merry-go-round, their pigtails flying.

“Everybody fought for her stuff.  I didn’t get anything.  Nobody will admit what they took.”

“You think your mom would remember?”

“Maybe some.”

“I think it’d be a great project.”

Under her supervision I baked the cake.

Skillet Cake

Skillet Cake

It rained hard, and the studio was a mess.  We had to finish the layout for one of the cookbooks in two days.  Rain plastered the windows and blocked all sunlight.  The artificial lights inside the building only made the brick walls seemed darker and more confined than they actually were.  

“Beatrice called.”  Amanda walked over to my desk.  I powered my computer and was just about to go over the images from the other day’s shoot.

“She called twice.”

I looked up at her extended hand.  In it she held two pieces of sticky notes.

“She wants to re-do the pear cake photo.”

I took the sticky notes.  “No.”

“I told her it was probably going to be a no.”

“It is a no.”

“She won’t take no for an answer.”

“She’s going to have to.”

“She said she’s paying money.”

“She also has a deadline.”

“She doesn’t like the picture.”

“Her book goes to the publisher in two days.”

“She wants to schedule a re-shoot for this afternoon.”

“With who?”

Amanda tilted her head.

I tilt also.

“I told her you were busy.”

“Which I am.”  I inserted the memory card into the computer.

“She then said she’ll come over with the cake.”

“You’re kidding right?”  Images began to populate my screen.

“I don’t kid when it comes to threats.”  Amanda walked off.

I called my mother earlier in the morning.  So far so good.  Surgery went well.  Dad was resting.  His body and heart were well worn.  Could a person wear out their heart by loving someone so much?  Random thought, I know, but the idea captured me.  Has anyone ever been diagnosed with heart failure or just heart fatigue from over loving another person?  I guess if excessive worrying and nagging could be called over-loving a person the condition could be plausible.  What I meant was really loving a person.  Emotionally caring for them and shower attention, affection and adoration upon them.  Would a person’s health disintegrate if they discovered that they were wrong about what they thought they loved, or if their love was not reciprocated?

“Beatrice, the image is quite good.”  I could hear her oven door shut over the phone.

“The cake looks crumbly.  I don’t want it to look crumbly when thousands of people will be buying the book.”

“It’s authentic.  I touched up the fissure for you and--”

“Oh I know and that’s good, but I’ll know it was a disaster.”

“Beatrice, honestly we don’t have time to--”

“Damn it!--I hate the photo.”

Because of her popularity as a once famous country singer and award winning songwriter, my afternoon appointment was rescheduled, and I was sent over to Beatrice’s house with my lighting crew.  And because of her substantial project account with our company, we didn’t want to lose her as a valuable client.  Even though she was behaving like a spoiled brat, we were willing to eat the cost for this shoot.

Tony, the lighting engineer, nudged me as we stepped out of the car.  “You better wipe that look off your face,” he muttered and spit his gum out into one of Beatrice hedges.

Her kitchen was a replica of Paula Dean’s.  Her counter tops were cleared except for the vases of flowers.  There in the middle was the skillet cake.  The place smelled like a bakery at Thanksgiving.  

“Ok, now I want flowers around it and some pecans, you know to give it ambiance.”  She waved her hand at the cake and flowers poised for the camera.  Tony and his crew went about wordlessly setting up the lighting trees and the white background screen.

Beatrice took a bag of unshelled pecans from her pantry.  

I bit my lip.

“Or do you think cinnamon sticks will make more sense since cinnamon is one of the ingredients in the cake.  Pecans are not in the cake.”

“Beatrice.  This isn’t the same composition as was in the original plan.”

“Oh, I know!”  Her eyes lit.  “I thought we’d make it a bit more pizazzy.” 

“How so?”

“Well, it’ll add more color and depth, of course.”

Tony bumped into me.

Skillet cakes were never an issue of turmoil with Grandma.  If the cake didn’t flip perfectly, she would just reapply the pieces.  Looks you can fix, Grandma said.  It’s the taste that you can’t.

“Daaaaammmn!”  The cake did not flip for Beatrice.  It could not be cajoled or eased out of the skillet.  It fell apart in a god-awful mess, as if expressing exactly what our whole crew felt.  

I drove home with a headache.  A whole day was wasted, and now I was a day behind schedule.  When I opened the garage door, I stared.  

His bags were packed.  His CDs and DVDs were no longer on the shelves.  He was just about to open the door when I entered.  I could tell he was wishing to make a clean get-away.  I walked over to the kitchen counter and unplugged the blender.  “Don’t forget this.  Leave the garage door opener on the table.”  Then I went into the bedroom and shut the door.

Silence.

I stepped back and stared at the door.  After a few minutes he knocked.  

“Let’s talk.”

“No need.  Your actions spoke clearly.”

“You never once called me.”

“Neither did you.”

“Apparently I don’t mean anything to you anymore.”

“Apparently you feel the same.”

“How do you want to divide the furniture?”

“Get out.”

Once he was gone I went to the kitchen.  I didn’t have a cast iron skillet, but I had a Dutch oven.  I also had a couple of Bosc pears in the fridge.  I’ve watched Beatrice attempt to make the Pear Upside Down Spice Cake so often that I knew the recipe by heart.  I turned on the stove and peeled the pears as if I needed to conquer this cake.  

I cut the butter and tossed it into the Dutch oven.  Then added brown sugar after the foaming from the butter subsided.  After a couple of minutes I arranged the pear slices onto the sugar and let it cook uninterrupted for a bit.  I beat butter, sugar and egg; then added the flour and spice mixture, alternating with the molasses.  Once the batter was smooth, I poured it over the pears, covering them in the gingerbread cake mix.  

The apartment smelled wonderful with the spices baking.  Grandma loved to peek every now and then at the oven window.  Not me.  I went and showered while waiting for the timer to go off.  The cake looked like perfection; however, I couldn’t invert it.  Rather, I found a big serving spoon and scooped up a piece of cake.  Spiced Scoop Cake with Pears.

...I needed to conquer this cake.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Alone

Alone

My friend Jason called.  He’s a wedding photographer.

“Listen, the girls are making pizza; there’s more cheese than dough.  Why don’t you and Rainier come over for dinner?”

“Sounds delicious.  Actually I’m just heading out.  Dad’s in the hospital.”

“Oh my god, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know the whole story, but he nearly collapsed.  He hasn’t been doing so well.”

“I’m so sorry.  What time is your flight?”

“I’m driving.”

Pause.

I closed the trunk of my car and walked around to the driver’s side.

“Rainier’s going, too, right?”

“Jason, Rainier isn’t here.  I haven’t seen him for a week.”

There was a time when I knew Rainier’s entire schedule, and he would call me every day.  There was a time when we couldn’t be around each other enough.  Our jobs were a chore and we lived for the moment we’d spend together.  

You are so quick to make friends, Grandma said to me.  When I was little I had lots of sleep overs.  Not everybody was my best friend, but I did have a lot of friends.  Carla was the Hispanic girl whose mother always braided her long hair.  She wore braces and slept with colored rubber bands in her mouth.  Nicole was the most stuck-up friend I had.  The boys in our class thought she was the prettiest with her wavy blond hair and blue eyes.  She was very fashion conscience.  Mandie Pattel was always know by her first and last name together.  Her father made the most money of the parents represented in our elementary school.  She was a very giving person and always had something different for lunch each day of the week.  Coral was the strange one.  She slept without any underwear and was convinced all the boys had a crush on her.  Grandma cared for neither of those girls.  She only liked Yuri.  Yuri was Japanese, and she was smart.  Common sense was obvious to her.  Grandma could talk to her, and Yuri knew how to carry a conversation.  I don’t know where she is now, but I think of her often, especially when I need to be pragmatic.  Her family moved from the area the summer before we entered high school.  

“What do you mean?  Where is he?  Have you called him?”

I was startled that I still held the cell phone to my hear.  

“Jason, I have to go.  Tell the girls and Dee hi for me.”

The only time I think about having children is when I am around Jason’s two girls, Katya and Sophia.  Age seven and four.  I knew them since they were born.  They are the cutest, happiest little people I’ve ever known, and Jason is there ready to capture their precious ordinary moments with his camera.  Often when I need a smile or something to perk up my day I would visit his blog of his girls and laugh at their silly and all too expressive expressions.  Jason’s a good father.  If I were to have children, I would want to be able to give them the kind of environment Jason has for his girls.  That didn’t mean I wanted children in the future, though.  If I wanted children it was because I’ve seen how good it could be.  My life is easier without people depending on me.  

How can you have so many friends? Grandma would ask.  She never understood why I had a group of girls around me most of my spare time.  I was either doing this or going there or bringing this person home.  You don’t have time to settle, she would say.  You need time to settle your mind and be alone every once in a while.  It’s not healthy to be surrounded by people all the time.  Chezy always hated when Grandma said that to her, too.  Instead of just listening and shutting up Chezy had to argue.  It wasn’t until I went to college that I understood what Grandma meant.  College was a different world, and I had a hard time making or finding friends.  

The phone rang.

Mom.  “Hi sweetheart.”

“Hi Mom.”

Deep sigh.

“Mom, I’m on my way.”

“What?”

“I just left the house.  I’m driving home.”

“Oh sweetheart, you don’t have to do that.  That’s a long drive for you.  It’s going to be dark soon.”

“I drive better in the dark, Mom.  Really it’s ok.  Do you need anything?”

“They’ve scheduled your father for surgery.”

“What did they say?”

“He’s going to need a bypass.”

Dad was never the type to get sick, or if he did he didn’t have time for it and pressed through.  He was never weak physically.  He always did things; cleaned the gutters, raked the lawn, mowed the grass, trimmed the hedges, ran the yearly marathon, attended football games, patched the roof and tinkered with the plumbing.  Mom relied on his ability to know how to do things.  Even though they ended up drifting in separate directions the longer they remained together, they depended on each other.  Mom was content with the security Dad provided.  Dad didn’t complain about the comforts of home.  They had a system.  For them it worked.  

I wondered if they ever wanted out.  People who are in love have good times to talk about with their friends.  People who are through with each other can’t bear to be in the same room.  People who are trapped talk of the weather and generalities.  The subject matter never struck home; it never reached the depth of what their heart was crying for.  Rather, such things were suppressed when such people are among company.

I don’t talk about Rainier.  Those good times are dusty memories better left alone.  I’ve tried reliving them only to realize I no longer have my rose-colored glasses.  

“They’ll take good care of him, Mom.”

“I know they will.  Your aunts and uncles are here.  It is quite the entourage in the waiting room.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Sweetheart, it’s ok.  There’s no need for you to drive all that way.  Turn around; go home.  It’s dark.  We’re fine.  It’s all going to be fine.”

“I’m by myself, Mom.”

Pause.  “What about your job?”

“It can wait.”

“Really, sweetheart, we’re fine, but if you think...”

“I should get there some time after 10 a.m.”

Donuts

Coffee

Coffee

The mess in the kitchen did not disturb him.  I filled one side of the sink with hot soapy water and dumped in the dirty dishes.  I turned on the coffee maker and the morning traffic report.  The highways were clogged.  Residual rain from last evening’s cascade interrupted people’s good judgment.  He never came home.

The coffee shop was a hot mess.  Bodies and cell phones, voices all speaking at once.  We squeezed our way to the back corner where there were no windows, no ventilation and hardly no room.  The vacant table had a sticky smear of cream and sugar.

“Are you filing?”

“We’re not married, Jackie.”

She looked at me as if shocked.

“I’m shocked.  You’re kidding, right?”

“Why are you shocked?”

“How did your family not make you get married?”

“When was the last time I was with my family, Jackie?”

“Oh.”

“How can you be shocked?  You knew.”

“No, I didn’t.”  She shook her head and stared.  “I just assumed you two had a quiet ceremony.”

“Yeah, that’s what we had.”

She leaned forward.  Her breath smelled like hazelnut creamer.  “How did he convince you to not get married?”

“He didn’t need to convince me; I talked him into it.”

Back in the day marriage was the foundational institution of a solid American family.  Men and women married to procreate and raise respectable citizens to populate the nation and contribute to society by paying taxes and by becoming a consumer.  The axis of a stable family nucleus revolved upon an enduring marriage.  Whether the union was good or bad doesn’t matter as long as it was stable.  

Grandma didn’t talk about Grandpa much.  I never noticed it until my preteen years.  Few pictures of him existed.  The best ones were displayed in frames on the mantle, but that was only two.  They had six children.  Uncle Charlie was divorced three times and on his fourth marriage when I graduated college.  Aunt Vanessa stayed married to the same man but criticized his table manners and snoring in public.  Mom and Dad were college sweethearts.  They supported each other until they began having kids.  Now they don’t do anything together.  

There’s a coffee house on the corner of 5th.  It’s bookish and old.  No Wi-Fi or mod light fixtures.  Wooden chairs were all they offered, but it’s quiet.  You could hear the percolator and the shuffling of feet, the pulling and pressing of knobs.  It’s my favorite place, but I try not to go there often.  For when I do I never wanted to leave.  I remembered the packed bag under the bed.

Grandma drank instant coffee.  Just enough powder to color her water a tepid brown.  She drank it because everybody else in her family drank it.  We sort of pushed her towards coffee.  She reluctantly complied.  

I poured a cup of coffee and added sugar.  Some people were more compliant than others.  I used to be.  Rarely was Grandma.  Like Jackie she would have been shocked, too.  The dish water lost its steam, and the bubbles fizzled.  Would it have been better the traditional way?  Would that have guaranteed we wouldn’t reach this crossroad?  

Grin it and bear it.  Does that mean it’s more noble to suffer in an unhappy marriage rather than finding your way out?  Was it less esteem-able to live happily with someone without a license compared to having a license and being miserable?  What determined marriage?  A signed document by a state official or your heart?  Are witnesses required to prove the existence and legality of your union?

We signed no document, and no one with a title signed ours.  Our hearts were in it when we came together.  I could leave, and I know that I will.  The coffee turned cold.  We met at the coffee house on the corner of 5th.  The barista gave me his drink and he mine.  I didn’t see it coming.  Grandma did and I so wanted to blame her.  

“What are you going to do?”

I stared at the cup in my hands.  I thought about this word for a long time.  I perused it and mulled over it.  I searched for other words but nothing seemed to do.  

“Quit.”