Recipe

Forget adam’s rib forget evolution, I’d rather be made from a recipe planned carefully on a page stained with salt and oil, yellowed, handwritten in Julia Child’s Kitchen after years of reading English, too tall to fight, she spent the war typing codes on notecards making sure that sharks didn’t blow up the ocean by swimming through bombs but it was one of those exploded sea-creatures resting on a plate in Rouen that blew her life apart and she learned to follow her mouth along with her heart. I want to be so full of butter, I’m on a roll I want to be meticulously folded for hours in and out of the freezer until I’m flaky and soft and melt-in-your-mouth I want to be delicious I want to be coddled in a pot steeping hot, stirred and savory I want to look good even on a black and white 1960s TV I want your mouth to water when you look at me and it’s ok to deviate from the words on that page, those years of precision drowned in beef stock I don’t care if I’m stuck to the pan or a little crispy If I can’t be an omelet, I’ll be scrambled it all goes to the same place as long as I’m good, let me be anything slow roasted and seasoned tossed and dressed if you drop me on the floor, just rinse me off and put me back no one will be the wiser, no one cares anymore about where their food came from, only if it was made with love or something more I want to be tender and juicy I want to be a creation someone’s legacy, a dish to be proud of a dish to inspire other dishes I want there to be a next time one thousands versions of the same flavor pass the pepper rubbed in butter, because if you asked someone what butter tastes like they wouldn’t be able to tell you and butter is what makes a French Chef French I would clog your veins and stick to your bones I would raise your cholesterol get your doctor on the phone because baby, I’m heart attack material and what a good way to go en mangeant quelque chose I would be the inspiration of gluttony it’s ok to indulge, you should never feel guilty for anything, I want to be a taste that makes you smile because I would have been cooked with passion, passed from the chef straight to me straight to you at least that’s how I imagine it but I’m not getting any awards for good spirits fine wines are a rarity, I whine all the same overcooked, trying to steep in the juice of someone else, and they taste like they should but that flavor escapees me, I don’t know what it’s supposed to be I don’t know what I should taste like I don’t know my own recipe.