I can’t remember W’s exact words but there was honesty and awe in her voice when she spoke.
It was recent, over one of the dinners which we've come to enjoy having at the round high-top in the office room we now call The Café, since hanging a half curtain at the window for evening privacy. It fits us; a tucked away table for two, within the bistro.
Our dinners are like Spoke and I had, like W has long wished for and now has with me, and like Jacques Pepin describes of his own such ritual with his late wife.
Wine is consumed and conversation never lulls. The dinners are leisurely no matter what. Time waits for us. Seems sometimes to stand still.
“You treat yourself as a guest in your own bistro,” is what she said, full of wonderment as if she was outside looking in; not wanting to be like me, but intrigued by what she sees.
It is true.
If alone, I take the time to prepare what it takes to eat well, even if, and often, in its simplest form. Well does not mean extravagant, but delicious, good at its worst. That I plate and serve in a beautiful manner is what I do whether for my guests or myself.
The effort may just be my way of respecting the food. It, by nature, is giving me so much pleasure and good health, meals should be acknowledged, even celebrated. Handwashing pretty plates is not a chore.
I know of perhaps only one like-minded person and that is my friend, Grethe. Our birthdays are just a day apart which may account for the similarities. It’s a nice, albeit unique connected feeling despite the distance between us.
Much like the pleasure of a great stemmed glass for wine, attention to detail sets a tone which is touted often yet I never tire of it: Life is short, use the good china.
Eat the cake too, I'll add.
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