Eat Your Heart Out

Della was so happy! She’d been thinking about leaving her job of several years, a job with security, insurance, and a retirement plan. Of course she wasn’t giving retirement much thought. That was years away. She didn’t want to retire until she had to go to assisted living or they took her to the hospital. 

Then came the changes. Or the lack of changes.

For a number of years cooking, after that studying the history of foods and cuisines, had served as antidote to the colonial and nineteenth-century history classes that had become repetitive. Because it was a two-year school, there were no four year degrees or graduate students. She could only teach certain classes, over and over, because nobody came to that college to major in history.

At least that’s what she thought, until things started to go even less smoothly at work. Some people just soldier on when colleagues start to show their true colors, but it had gotten harder and harder for Della. Hard to concentrate, hard to sleep, hard doing her job well. 

“Darn alarm! I just got to sleep!” And it was true.

She didn’t feel like teaching, which was not a good sign. That became an every day feeling and she began to drift into darker areas, ones where one goes through the motions and is never happy.

Life was too short to be dissatisfied, she told herself. A psychologist would have assessed her as desperate for a communicative, positive work environment. Della didn’t need anybody else to tell her what was wrong. She knew she was bored and had aggravating colleagues. She just didn’t know how to remove them from her life short of doing the unthinkable.

Then she realized what had always been her passion, what gave her what some people might call balance: food. Certainly everyone likes food, and Della’s interest was both intellectual as well as gut-level. However, she’d been brought up to see the kitchen as something for housewives and she had wanted a career. 

Still, the years had passed and no matter how much she tried to stay out of the kitchen, tried to be the model of a professional woman, food was her true love. She found comfort in making as well as eating it. It had always been that way for her.

This love was the reason Della had finally found the courage to give up teaching history in a community college in order to become a professional chef. She might not have been aware of it, but deep down she thought might even consider doing a cooking show, if she were lucky. Like Gordon Ramsay, if she were really lucky… 

Don’t be silly, you know it’s not fame and fortune that drives you; it’s something more like a passion, something you really enjoy doing.

Her conscious insisted that Della simply wanted to put her creativity to work in the kitchen. There was no shame in that. It made her smile and she felt useful when feeding those around her. It wasn’t a feeling she attributed to her mother, though. Her mother, to be honest, would have disapproved of what Della did next. It was risky and not something girls did.

Della wasn’t a girl anymore; she was long past it. Her mother’s opinion no longer mattered.

After deliberating for a few months, Della took money from her savings and supplemented those funds with a small loan. That was how she managed to pay for culinary school, an Escola do Turismo of Portugal. It was a country she’d always wanted to visit since she’d visited Fall River, Massachsetts. Just something about the culture.

She chose to attend programs of eighteen months each in both Porto and Coimbra. In the three years she studied in Portugal, she was able to visit other European countries as well. Her palate became more and more refined. She knew her spices, her oils and vinegars exceptionally well. She was also creative in her use of fresh herbs and greens of all kinds. Della had chosen well. It was hard to come home.

The investment had clearly been worthwhile and Della’s friends were good at recommending her as a caterer for special occasions. She was never lacking for business. Seemingly, there is always a market for good food. Della did not limit her specialties to a few dishes from one country. She had several of Asian origin and others from African countries like Angola and Mozambique. Obviously, being in Portugal had helped encourage her to look into former colonies. She had discovered cuisines she never would have heard about or tasted back in the US.

Cooking turned out to be exactly what Della had felt she needed. She felt next to no nostalgia for the academic environment, so full of tests, reports, calculation of grades. Very little freedom.

At the same time, although she had been very successful in her training to be a chef and was an excellent caterer, she still liked communication, liked belonging to a community. It was old-fashioned or small-town thinking, but she couldn’t help it. Della was happiest now when preparing food for friends or family. She did that at least three times a year, using themes for food, beverages, and the ‘mood’. 

Tonight was one of those occasions. She had organized an open house with an exquisite, wide-ranging buffet as celebration of having been offered the head chef position at a prestigious restaurant in the city. Her dream job. Several steps beyond working as a private caterer and yes, closer to Gordon Ramsay fame.

She could always hope.

Her much-improved state of mind was reflected in the dishes she was offering her guests. There were many of these, seemingly coming and going all evening. No matter what part of the open house period - for that’s what it was - guests kept filling her home. Some would leave and new ones would appear.

The theme was an open door, because Della thought this new job was for her like opening a door and stepping into paradise. Perhaps the theme she had chosen wasn’t all that creative, but the lighting that covered every wall with strings of lights arranged in door shapes? Those lights were so much better than the meager description provided here. There were a lot of lights, selected and placed so as not to make the food look odd.

The food mirrored the theme and so many of the dishes had a rectangular shape with a handle, knocker or doorbell. Even the tiny mazapán balls were placed in rectangular shape, on a base that looked like metal and the mazapán like elaborate wrought iron trim on a medieval entryway. Some of the rectangles lay flat, but a few stood upright. That had been a challenge, but props like celery and carrot sticks had helped. Toothpicks also.

The playfulness was part of the fun, and the guests realized this. They went on to discuss the doors in their own lives, the opportunities they’d had and made use of.

It would be impossible to describe the abundance and playfulness of the food that had been prepared by Della over several days. Suffice it to say that there were four tables that were always replenished when needed, and sometimes a new dish was introduced. There were probably more than twenty dishes, plus cheese, oil dips, breads, olives, etc. available at all times.

The earliest people to arrive at Della’s events usually knocked on the door and waited to be let in. That had been the case on this occasion as well. Gradually, however, there were still knocks but people just let themselves in, because they knew nobody was watching the door. If the door happened to be open, the people didn’t even to bother to knock. Why should they?

Allowing everyone in had been the intention of the hostess. She was trained, among other things, to manage a large group of diners. With fussier dishes than the ones she’d prepared this time. The granddaughter of a friend had nevertheless wanted to help; it made her feel grown-up, said the grandmother. Della said fine, but she could only think of how she wanted to share her achievement with other people. To her, all the preparation involved was pleasurable, not a chore at all.

Teaching at the community college was a distant memory.

The mingling and munching, laughing and licking of lips, lasted several hours. At least three, but probably more than four. Somebody had actually brought a guitar and played some familiar tunes. It was the perfect gathering of people who enjoyed being together.

Almost something to freeze in time.

Despite the constant coming and going of guests, there came a moment when somebody knocked on the door a couple of hours after the celebration had begun and several toasts had already been made to the hostess. It almost seemed too good to be true. However, the new, well-paid, prestigious position was real. It was going to be her life for many years.

When Della heard the knock that should have been out of earshot, she startled, and went to open it. There was another person who had arrived to eat, drink, and congratulate her on the new job. The ecstatic hostess flung out her arm at the new arrival, but the gesture, intended to be a friendly hug, gave the woman standing by the door a fright. 

The arm didn’t reach.

A young woman with curly dark brown hair, who must have just started her shift and might also have just finished her coursework to become a nurse, was supporting a tray in her left hand as she held the door open with her right. The plastic tray was nothing like the tables with their feast, served on marble and wood plates. It bore three small covered dishes that most likely had been microwaved and had no salt at all. Della was certain she had neither made nor ordered the dishes.

Are you ready for supper? 

The nurse asked the elderly patient with a slightly uncertain tone, as if half expecting to be laid out in lavender, as people used to say. She knew she wasn’t exactly bearing gifts.

The old woman just looked at her and watched the weak steam filter out from beneath the foil cover on the mashed potatoes, peas, and meatloaf.