I was at dinner last night with the family. It was Parker’s going away dinner as he readied himself to head back to Virginia for the start of school. His choice of restaurants is the ideal for a ravenous 13 year old – Chinese buffet.
I love buffet, as we all know, largely because my Gemini mind doesn’t have to torture over all the options available in a traditional menu. I sometimes have menu paralysis, not knowing what to order for fear that I someone else’s plate will look yummier than mine. But with buffet, everything is possible.
The same is true of mornings. They are like a buffet to me. Everything is still possible in the day, the magic slate has been lifted once again so it is clean. So many choices are waiting that I can barely stand it. That is truly why I’ve always been an early riser. I love the morning buffet.
I also love the perfect bite. While I’m sure vampires dream of them too, my version of the perfect bite came from a Barbra Streisand movie, I think it was the Prince of Tides.
Anyway, in the movie she would work her way around the food on her plate, eating around the perfect bite that awaited her at the end. This is how I eat now. I will taste everything first, then keep circling around, eating the things I like least first, followed by the favorites. If I do it right, I end up with a perfect bite.
It’s not always just a single thing. It can be several different foods that I liked equally that are rolled into one last forkful of divine numminess. The goal here is to end up with a taste you can relish in your mouth long after the meal has passed. It continues to make you marvel at its confluence of your favorite flavors and you never want it to go away. Think of it as a little orgasm for the taste buds.
There is an artform to this. The perfect bite requires a lot of work on your part to get just the right blend of flavors and proportions. It is not haphazard. And if you blow it, there’s no way to get a second chance. The food on your plate is all gone and I rarely go back to the well in a vain attempt to replicate a perfect bite.
And this brings me to the crux of today’s litany. As I was having dinner, mention was made of the famed perfect bite. Though it was misinterpreted as the “last bite.”
This of course, sent my mind reeling. The last bite. What would that be like?
This is where life is a bit unfair. As a prisoner about to be put to death, you get a traditional last meal. You can actually order what you want for your very last meal on this earth. The rest of use rarely know when the end is coming. We could have just had a crappy $1 burger off the value menu and keel over an hour later, that being our last bite.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on a simple fast food burger for it is suddenly elevated to the status of the very last thing someone ever tasted.
People on death row get two things we don’t in life. First, they get to choose their last meal. Second, they, well, get put down like a dog at a vet hospital.
Let’s forget the second part for a moment here and concentrate on the first. As an ex-Catholic (divorce kind of makes you one of these), they have the seven sacraments: Baptism, Communion, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Marriage, Holy Orders and Anointing the Sick.
I have made my way through five of these babies. I doubt I’ll ever become a priest, so Holy Orders is out. That leaves me with the sixth one, Anointing the Sick. This is also known as the Last Rites.
This is where the priest comes to your bedside and prepares you for your meeting with the big guy upstairs. Of all the sacraments, this is the big one because when a priest shows up at the side of your bed, you pretty much know it’s curtains for you.
Being an ex-Catholic, I don’t think Last Rites will help me much anymore. But as I pondered the concept of my last moments here on earth, I realized that I don’t need a priest, I need a chef.
You see, I don’t want Last Rites. I want Last Bites.
In my ideal world, as I prepare to make my maker, they would roll a pantry cart into the room instead of a crash cart. The chef comes in and asks me if I have any Acts of Nutrition that I would like to confess. I start in,
Bless me chef for I have sinned. It has been six months since my last dining experience at your restaurant…
Now, in Catholic-land this is where the penance kicks in… the punishment for being one of God’s little slackers.
For me, this is where the penne kicks in, along with some fresh pesto, garlic bread and a wonderful bottle of really good Washington State wine, not the cheap stuff you can get at Walmart. Fresh pasta would be a good start, indeed. I would add in a chef’s salad, some sourdough pancakes with sausage, not bacon, Italian wedding cake from Publix, Dutch apple pie, brownies (frosted, of course), a chocolate shake and an Ultimate Cheeseburger from Jack in the Box (a Big Buford from Checkers is an acceptable substitute if I am still in Florida).
I think that should do it for my Last Bites. I know, pretty simple, huh? No Filet Mignon or Dom Perignon on the menu. Just stuff I eat semi-regularly that I love. They would be the Last Bites I would want on earth.
Thinking about this, it makes me wonder why I ever order off the value meal in the first place. What if those were my Last Bites instead? Egad, I need to pay much more attention to the menus from now on.
Out here on the Treasure Coast, suddenly feeling hungry but I don’t know why,
– Robb