“Try baking it stuffed with garlic and herbs.”
I smile. Grandmother’s recipe. I already cleaned out the innards because I was thinking in that direction. Grandmother didn’t like the sourness of lemon, but it should be added to minimize the fishy taste and accentuate the fresh scent. “Do you think so? Or do you think I should pan-fry it in olive oil and plate it with artichokes?”
“That sounds good, too.” To make me laugh, Uncle loudly smacks his lips into the receiver.
This is not the time to tell him about Paulie. Uncle asks me if I could come visit next week. Visiting days are Fridays, but that’s when the kitchen is at its busiest. I tell him I can. I feel uneasy leaving the kitchen, but this is the first time Uncle has asked me to come visit him.
“Is something going on, Uncle?”
“Will you bring me a washcloth?”
I’m surprised.
There are certain things you can’t bring to the hospital. Obviously disposable razors or knives, scissors, nail clippers, clothes hangers, lighters, matches—and also things like blankets or long ties or belts. Even rice cakes aren’t allowed, because you can choke on them.
“No, it’s not what you think. I don’t feel clean when I shower. They don’t have those here.” Uncle laughs.
Glad that Uncle knows what I’m thinking, I place the carp on the chopping block. I only hear Uncle’s voice but I think I understand. I think he really just needs the washcloth. “But I don’t think that’s possible yet, Uncle,” I tell him, laughing, and hang up.
If someone close to you is an alcoholic, you can’t sympathize with him. Instead you need to practice restricting your own confused feelings, understanding that you feel the way you do because you’re near an alcoholic. And you can’t ever try to deal with an alcoholic by yourself. I wasn’t able to do anything for Uncle, but he was gradually trying to get better. And the family-therapy sessions gave both of us new hope. Alcoholics’ families often deny that an alcoholic is among them and unconsciously try to keep the patient in a codependent state, in an ongoing alcoholic haze. So the family is sometimes the victim or the onlooker or even the wrongdoer. The therapy sessions allowed us to understand each other’s positions. But hearing the word co-dependency was like stepping on a nail. The important thing is that Uncle is starting to change—a change different from the transformation I’ve undergone.
Uncle, who had been passive toward the treatment program, now plays badminton and Ping-Pong with the other patients and joins calligraphy and origami sessions. I wonder if Uncle is adapting to his environment so he can remain in the hospital, instead of completing his treatment. Once, I asked him in a suggestive tone, Don’t you want a drink? As if I would have given one to him if he had wanted. Uncle, lost in thought for a while, shook his head. Of course I want to sometimes, but if I have the urge to drink I have a conversation with myself. How, I asked. I ask myself, What would happen if I don’t quit now? I nodded earnestly. There are three levels in the treatment process—detox, rehabilitation, and social adaptation—and Uncle seems to have arrived at the second level. But why does that make me feel unsettled and empty?
If I could talk to Uncle’s wife one last time, I would ask her if she really loved him. I don’t understand why she killed herself but I think I could cook for her now. I pour an inch of olive oil into the hot pan to fry the red carp. For the sauce I mix together white wine and fish stock. When I make something for the first time, I get tense but I don’t falter or hesitate. I sweep sliced artichokes into the same pan to crisp them. I season them with salt and pepper. I plate the carp and garnish it with the artichokes. I drizzle the sauce over it.
No. Something is missing. When you make a dish for the first time, it’s important to have a feel for it. I stare at the carp and nod. I find a jar filled with nuts and take out some almonds. With the side of my knife, I tap the almonds to peel them and slice them in slivers, as if they are garlic. I place the white almonds around the carp’s eye. I pick up the eyeball that I took out before putting the carp in the pan and nestle it back into its place. Food lovers don’t even glance at a fish dish if its eyes are missing. The almond garnish spotlights the white of the carp’s eye. It’s bright and clear, fitting for a dish made for a dead person. Try it, Aunt, I say, my voice faltering. Many creative, imaginative women suffer from anorexia. If I had been closer to her I might have been able to help her over time, as I did with Munju. But she chose a more dramatic method, an ending fitting for a creative and imaginative woman. I look down at the dish. The fish’s eye is fresh and alien-like, asking me, How can you see anything, the way you’re stumbling around in the dark?
CHAPTER 26
I’VE RECEIVED OFFERS to write a cookbook several times, both from Mun-ju’s magazine and from other publishers. I would have enough for a book if I compiled all the recipes I’ve published in women’s magazines and food publications. I refused every time for two reasons: I believed that there was no such thing as a unique recipe, and even Chef hadn’t written a cookbook. If I had a chicken I would be able to make a hundred dishes with it. To highlight only one way to cook a chicken would be ignoring the possibilities. You have to be able to cook a chicken according to your mood and intuition, and the side dishes and the ingredients to be stuffed into the chicken have to change with the seasons. Anyone could write a book about a basic chicken recipe, and that book probably exists anyway. But more importantly, Chef is the one who developed my palate and helped me grow beyond it. It would make me uneasy if I were to write a cookbook before he did—it wouldn’t be ethical. I might have thought differently if I still had my cooking classes. It would have been a way to promote the classes and K as a chef, and at the time I wasn’t thinking of Chef unless I was using his methods for a recipe in a magazine or in class as if I’d come up with them on my own.
Anyway, now I don’t have time to think about a cookbook: It’s more practical and invigorating to think of a different chicken recipe. Chef, on the other hand, is considering that very idea. Before dinner service, he calls me to the office and asks if I could help him write a cookbook. Even someone you think you know well can make you flustered. It’s as if he secretly told me a broken tree branch will come back to life if I blow on it. I don’t believe this and neither does he, but the sad thing is that I consider his proposition for a moment, even as he watches me with pitying eyes. Now I feel more than flustered. I feel deflated. Could it be that all he wants to do is write a book on food? I’m not being creative or open-minded. It’s not a good attitude to have when I’m cooking. I ask, frowning, Why so suddenly?
Years ago, Chef told me that Apicius is always mentioned in books about the origins of cooking. He was a first-century Roman chef who wrote the oldest surviving cookbook, On the Subject of Cooking, and was the first cook to really incorporate eggs in dishes. At the time, Romans were fighting ennui. Epicureanism was in vogue, and the eater and the cook desired to break boundaries by creating dishes with pig’s nipples and genitalia or stuffed winter rats. Cooks had to satisfy the finicky tastes of their patrons, patrons who were ready to eat anything different. Apicius worked to create an ingenious dish that had never existed before. Finally, after completing his book, he killed himself. He exhausted everything he had, just like an artist. Afterward, other cooks named Apicius appeared and similar cookbooks were published. I still remember vowing, as I chopped leeks in skills class, that I wouldn’t be one of the later Apiciuses. People change. Everything changes. There’s nothing remarkable about Chef changing. We’ve never spoken about it but we’ve been supportive and nonjudgmental of each other. But I don’t want to do this. Anyone else can do it; it doesn’t have to be me.