Leukemia and Croquettes

A recipe for memory, resilience, and the taste of unexpected tenderness.

Preface:

This story was born a few months ago when my husband woke up one morning and said he had dreamed that I wrote a story called "Leukemia and Croquettes." Of course, he didn’t dream up the plot — he left that part to me. As required by the prompt, I reshaped the story into the form of a recipe.

Content Note:

This story contains themes of cancer and grief, including references to terminal illness, hospital settings, and emotional loss.

Yield:

Serves one or two.

Preparation time:

Several weeks in the oncology ward, plus one lifetime of longing.

Shelf life:

Uncertain.

May expire without warning.

Serving Suggestions:

Best enjoyed alone, accompanied by a touch of longing.

Not ideal for closure.

Pairs well with memories that do not belong to you, until they do.

Ingredients:

For the story:

1 devastating diagnosis, as fresh as it is unwelcome

2 hospital infusion chairs

1 woman from Ramat HaSharon (secular, modern, tofu-based, detoxified, self-aware)

1 woman from Netanya (traditional, salted, round, slightly loud, with a French backdrop)

A heavy, unspoken silence

Several clashing worldviews

1 forbidden craving

A cherished memory of a grandmother who cooked like a prayer

Time (measured in drips, not hours)

For the Croquettes:

3 large potatoes, peeled, boiled, and mashed

3 tablespoons potato starch

150 g salted cheese (yes — salted)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Cooking oil, gently heated for frying

Tools:

Damp hands

A double-wrapped foil container

A heart soft enough to remember what didn’t belong to you

Silence, unmeasured

Instructions:

Step 1: Begin with calamity.

Introduce a woman drowning in bad news. She’s fragile, yet resilient. Preoccupied with survival. Split her life cleanly in two.

Ma chérie,

This morning, I remembered your croquettes.

Yes, croquettes.

I couldn’t help but laugh, picturing you with your croquettes, and me with my detox routines, tofu, and endless overthinking. Two worlds apart.

Like two distant continents.

Of all the things we shared during those difficult hours, it’s the croquettes I remember.

Their taste still lingers, a memory I can’t seem to shake.

Who would have guessed this is how I’d remember you?

Who would have thought I’d remember you at all?

When we met, I was drowning in calamity —

news that split my life in two,

marking the midpoint of my existence.

The life I’d known — familiar, intact — lay in ruins,

utterly unrecognizable.

There wasn’t even a crack left in me

for anyone to slip through.

Step 2: Introduce one unexpected ingredient.

Let a stranger settle into the chair beside her, like a sudden ingredient you never meant to add — but can’t imagine the dish without.

And yet, you appeared in my turmoil — uninvited, unceremonious, unshaken.

You were nothing like me — short, round, a bit loud.

“Ramat HaSharon!” you called out gleefully as you landed in the infusion chair beside mine, as if it had been waiting for you all along.

“Nice to meet you — Netanya,” you added with a wide smile.

Your Hebrew was clumsy, sweet, laced in that unmistakable French aroma.

You reached out your hand and shook my world.

Step 3: Stir in misunderstanding. Let it rise.

I didn’t understand you back then.

Not your headscarf, not your accent, not the way your gaze seemed to pierce through me as if you saw right through the polished exterior, through the stance of a woman anchored in her convictions.

We endured several rounds together — treatments, pauses, moments of blurry hope.

Blood flowed backward while the race of life stood still.

Naturally, we began to talk.

We tried to fill the hours — and the waiting for something that might never come.

But it didn’t take us long to see — it was futile.

Every topic sparked a fire.

You with your symbols, me with my doubt.

Religion, politics, education, even music.

Each one a danger zone.

And we? We moved like soldiers across a minefield — each word a potential trigger.

Silently, we marked unnecessary stress as our only shared enemy.

Step 4: Fold in shared silence. Fold gently. Let settle.

Silence thickens like dough. Let it rest between you. Don’t force conversation. Let presence do the work.

Slowly, silence settled around us.

Stubborn, dense, charged silence.

We sat side by side for hours —

arms tethered to tubes,

hearts tethered by pain —

and said nothing.

Step 5: Slowly add in the secret ingredient.

One day, out of nowhere, you said:

“Croquettes.”

You closed your eyes and savored an imagined, distant, forbidden taste.

I looked at you, puzzled.

“What?”

You opened your eyes and smiled at me.

“With salted cheese, of course,” you grinned.

I raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t put salted cheese in croquettes.”

“Mais bien sûr,” you laughed. “That’s the secret!”

And so, against the backdrop of shared devastation, a small hope was born.

Croquettes.

Step 6: Prepare the mixture.

In a bowl, combine:

Mashed potatoes

Crumbled salted cheese

Potato starch

Optional salt and pepper (only if the cheese isn’t strong enough)

Mix with damp hands until smooth.

The texture should be tender but firm enough to form into orbs.

Let the mix rest while memories surface.

We spoke of recipes — potato starch, oil that mustn’t be too hot,

How you rolled them with wet hands —

“So they come out soft, like clouds.”

We spoke of your grandmother, who cooked like one prays, of the time you smuggled a box into the ward, wrapped in two layers of foil. Suddenly, the whole room smelled like home.

Step 7: Shape into croquettes.

Form the dough into small rounds or ovals with moist hands.

Let them carry the weight of unspoken tenderness.

From that day on, croquettes became the language we shared when words fell short.

Day by day, something delicate took root between us.

Not friendship in the usual sense.

Not closeness of secrets or deep conversation.

Something else — the intimacy of strangeness.

Two women bound by a nameless pain,

a quiet warmth born of a single, simple recipe.

Step 8: Fry. Carefully.

Heat oil in a wide, shallow pan over medium heat.

Don’t rush it. Fry the croquettes in small batches until golden brown on all sides.

Turn gently. Don’t let them break.

Drain on paper towels.

Serve warm – perhaps in foil. Or folded gently into memory.

And truly, there was something in it.

A memory that wasn’t mine — and suddenly was.

In that moment, I longed for a world I had never known.

for mothers who cooked with love,

for low houses with balconies,

for the scent of belonging rising from a pan.

Step 9: Let the differences remain. Let them transform.

The differences between us didn’t vanish.

They simply changed shape.

Me: Kindle, monochrome clothes.

You: floral tote, worn prayer book.

You would say, “Everything is for the best.”

even when it clearly wasn’t.

And I—I frowned. Didn’t always hide it.

And yet, somehow, I softened.

Maybe it was the fatigue.

Maybe it was you—

Your persistent smile that refused to give up.

Suddenly, without meaning to, we began to talk.

Of children.

Of fear.

Of a body quietly turning against itself.

When fear nearly won, you would whisper:

“Ma chérie, one day you’ll make them yourself. You’ll see.”

But there is no time in places like these.

Time runs short, unravels, drips away through bags and needles.

Step 10: Remove from heat. Let grief settle. Let it cool you to the bone.

One day I arrived, and your chair was empty.

I waited.

Maybe you were late.

Maybe lost again in the corridors.

Maybe you’d appear with a small tray in hand and say:

“Ma chérie, taste — it’s new, with herbs this time!”

But you didn’t come.

They said — maybe an infection,

Perhaps a heart complication.

No one knew.

There was no goodbye.

Only silence.

Only your croquettes,

rising suddenly in my memory —

warm, fragile, impossible to recreate.

Since then, your croquettes haunt me.

Simple. Comforting.

The taste of life, in fried form.

I tried to make them — I really did.

Even used salted cheese, like you.

But they didn’t come out like yours.

Not the texture.

Not the shape.

Not what lived inside.

And maybe that’s all that remains of you —

croquettes,

and a small, stubborn crumb of compassion,

left behind in the quiet space

where we agreed on almost nothing —

except food.

And life.