Hummus...Interrupted

There I sat, watching Marcel and his friend Marceau buzz between the steak display and my wine glass. I was overwhelmed by my great luck. I sipped a Cabernet-Shiraz blend from Australia amid conversation between another amazing blend: the Virginia-Georgia-South Carolina friends.

You never know what to expect from a night like this. Big hats, short skirts and a steakhouse. Hopefully followed by beer on a back porch and a long, quiet walk home. That’s just one option. Another option is a wild dance party spurred by Euro-trash music and bad décor. This is only made plausible by the afore mentioned Cabernet-Shiraz (thank you, Australia). Instead of a steakhouse and big hats, maybe summer skirts and too much sun combine with cans of beer and grilled treats.

This choose-your-own evening has one common thread: the friends. Time spent among this crowd of a Puck, a Bridget and an Annie Hall can only mean fun. The food is integral only in that it brought us to the table. The wine could be Yellow Tail for all we care, after enough glasses, we’re happy as toast (with marmalade, of course).

By bringing friends together, an evening of doughy bread, horseradish and mussels (hopefully not flexed) is just as tasty and fulfilling as an evening of the finest coconut curry-laced tofu.

But then, with every meal, there’s always a Marcel. Marcel might be a fly in your wine or a hair in your Pad Thai. Either way, nothing is perfect. Maybe Marcel comes in the form of a socially inept bystander, distracting you from your cool, brisk Miller Lite and the giggles at a dancing “professional.” The quirk only adds to the laughter.

Back to the steak display. Marcel chased Marceau between an obstacle course made up of my wine glass, the butter tray and our menu: a wheeling, wooden cart of various cuts of beef, culminating in a 48-ounce monstrosity that lands the winning diner—or fly—in the “48 Ounce Club”. Good times and great conversation can distract you from dead cuts of beef, but nothing could make up for Sal, the dying lobster. As we watched Marcel buzz by that sad, dying Sal, we hid our faces from Sal’s accusing eyes.

The guilt of our good time was only cured by more wine and Sal, on his bed of beef, wheeling away. On to torment another table, I’m sure. We may have waved good-bye to Sal, but Marcel was with us to stay. He was enamored with the conversation, I’m sure. Memories of times past, plans for summer and laughs at the end of a long week.

As we our night together that night, we all knew it would be something special. What we couldn’t believe, though, was that we would return with a friend like no other, a friendly follower in Marcel. He buzzed along behind us knowing that there may not be Saran-wrapped steak at our destination, but there sure would be good times.

Or maybe the broasted chicken with wild rice and green bean casserole. Whatever’s walking down the aisle, you end up in a face off between side dishes and rolls, the entrée you hoped for decidedly missing. Is there anything stranger than being a stranger in a familiar land? When the extent of your day is fending off drunken Chester chicken pick-up lines, can you fight the urge to ask, “Why does ‘Git ‘er done’ include adding bacon to my string beans?”

Why am I driving down the same road that made sense five years ago, wondering if I can veer to the right, the left or maybe just put it in reverse and tear away? I can ask the question in a million ways, but it boils down to the empanada filling of humanity: Since we’re all so fluid and changing, why am I so blatantly not a part of the mix?

Here I am, climbing down the wedding RV stairs, continuing to wish that I packed a lunch (for the entire weekend). We walked into the neighborhood bar, past the bikers in their leather chaps, underneath the “Chicago Bear Trap” wall hangings and gathered as a wedding party in front of the crowd. The groomsmen had long since eaten the bridesmaids’ sandwiches, so we were hungry. I don’t know what I was expecting, but Louis Rich had thrown up on the table and all that was left was some artificial crab dip and a plate of messy chocolate-mint brownies. Later, as my blood sugar raced from scavenged cookies and brownies, I climbed back into the bridal bus and found myself standing. Again.

As the seated groomsmen passed a flask of Doctor’s and I lurched with each passing turn, I felt blessed to see this wonderful friend begin her new life with her new husband.

Yes, you read right. I felt blessed. This was a girl who took me to the first place in town with a veggie burger for cheap. This was a girl who brought me flowers after a car accident (still one of the kindest gestures I’ve experienced). Over the years, she’s muddled though the foibles of a new vegetarian cook with smiles and the reassurance only the best roommates can bring. This was a true friend.

Now, five years past sharing a great apartment with a pool, we’ve gone our different ways. She’s a homeowner, married to a hunter. Spending her summers grilling hamburgers and brats on the lakeshore. I’m living closer to the Reflecting Pool than any lake and enjoying a Soy Pup on my rooftop grill in the summer smog.

As the opposing viewpoints of high-fastening pants, inappropriate dresses and bad country oil mixes with my high-strung, city-stress vinegar, I find myself accepting the difference as something cultural and experience it that way. We made a perfect vinaigrette this weekend, Wisconsin and I. Compelling me to embrace the past and the different paths we take as lives grow and opportunity knocks us on our…

Today I received a gift of sweet-real-adorable happiness. After striking out on my own in this big, bad world, I didn’t expect to find myself home. Depending on your definition of home, that is. Among good, strong, positive friends: you’re at home. And today, out of nowhere, I found myself both at home and in receipt of an amazing gift. The gift of flavor.

Flavor is never the same, whether you prepared the meal or had those same ingredients fall into your lap at a restaurant table. Flavor is an adventure. To me, the most surprising meal is the one prepared for me by someone I know and love. No, I’m not talking about fried tofu like Mom used to make. I’m talking about the day I rejoiced in a tasty treat, prepared for me by a trusted friend. I could see in her eyes that this was something special, a test. A test to see if I, the cooker, could become the cook-ee. And how, you might ask, does the dutiful friend transform me into a cook-ee? By catching me off-guard. With simple flavor on a crazy day, she surprised me and brought me back to what I know and love. Flavor. Clear, honest, al dente flavor.

The bottom line is that flavor is subjective. Basil added when you know it should be, but wouldn’t have thought to, has more power because you weren’t around for the decision-making process. As I adjust the salt, its impact is more gradual. When a guest first experiences the salinity of my labor, however, I know the result is perfect: they haven’t reached for the saltshaker or for their water glass. I see their reactions, which satiates me. But what about the actual flavors? What about really tasting?

As I become stuffed with preparation, I lose the ability to taste for the food alone. I’m appreciating the flavors in the order I introduced them. I’m wishing I had added just a little more oregano. Why didn’t I buy those chives again? I’m thinking about the options for next time. The neuroses are endless. But for a tornado of a cook, rotating evaluation is everything. Every now and then, however, it’s nice to just sit back and enjoy someone else’s salinity. Sometimes, just experiencing is the only way.

That’s where we need a little help from our friends. The Beatles had it. The pure joy of food made by a friend is incomparable. For one who cooks, nothing is more amazing than being cooked for. Yet, for me, sometimes that truth is illusive:

The reality is that you can find yourself among friends and, without even knowing it, find people who take care of you in ways you didn’t expect. While a new recipe brings about surprising flavors, ideas, and learning experiences, nothing brings about a more wondrous flavor than something prepared for you by someone who loves you.

I am a sad, sad case. Children hate me; moms overcook and under-season. Jean-Claude Van Damme aside, I am the muscles from Brussels: the petite sprout with a big heart, flavor to spare and a nutty zing that could make you want a double order. But, many will never know me. Many fear the unique and interesting that they do not understand. Am I doomed to being misunderstood? I fortify and enrich the mind, body and soul with my vitamins. But why, then, am I so disliked?

People don’t understand what it’s like to be passed over at the market. When was the last time someone walked by you and snatched up a head of iceberg lettuce, eagerly paying outlandish prices for something so devoid of nutritional value. Lettuce, that will only hydrate you with its one-dimensional flavor.

They don’t know how they make me feel when they scrunch up their noses at that sulfuric smell. It’s not my fault your mom overcooked me! Chalk that up to not knowing how I like to be prepared. But then, she always wears that ill-fitting tapered pantsuit, too. Just as you cannot blame her for not knowing the Dress Barn sale was a mistake, I shouldn’t be blamed for her not knowing what suits me. I feel their disdain. I know what they’re thinking.

Is it that I’m not big? I’m robust in flavor, that has to count for something. I pack a wallop inside my pretty little head. I’m concise. I bring you complexities and insights that you just don’t see in the behemoth cabbage. My essence is concentrated, real, intense and something you’re not going to find in a larger head.

So maybe there aren’t any Brussels Sprout kids. I didn’t want a doll named after me anyway. What does Xavier Roberts know about good vegetables, I ask you? I doubt he’d know a good stir-fried sprout if it bit him in the cabbage patch.

But this is all going to change. I know that I’m being discovered bit by bit each day. I don’t need a PR firm’s help. I don’t need to bend spinach’s ear to find out how it ended up on every chain restaurant’s salad menu. I certainly don’t have to ask a Yukon Gold rep how it managed to scribble the russet off so many foodies’ shopping lists. All I need to do is continue to wait as chef after chef tries me out. Maybe stir-fried on a bed of mustard greens, maybe with some pine nuts, garlic and vinegar. Whatever the “experiment” of the house, I will soon become the specialty. I have faith.

Children may never enjoy me. I’m sure your mom will never learn the secret. But as the young grow into food snobs, they will develop an affinity for my smooth, nuttiness. The Shake n’ Bakin’ ladies of yesterday will fall to the might of the pan-searing women of tomorrow. The Brussels sprout will win, one taste bud at a time.