Et al.

Bad Attitude

I should be thankful. I just don't feel it.

My daughter and I just put our tart in the oven, and decided to pre-whip the cream. I'm a whipped-cream snob; like my wine pretensions, it's a skill owed to my lengthy stint in restaurants, where hand-whipping the cream was the waitstaff's sole contribution to the culinary craftsmanship that justified the high prices, which, of course, translated pretty darn frequently into very generous tips. One of the few corners I do NOT cut in the kitchen is in the area of whipping cream.
But as I got out the battered stainless steel restaurant-supply issue bowl and whisk, I was struck with an image of my husband, who eagerly adopted most of my food tics, and had become enamored of things like hand-whipped cream, especially when it could be paraded before his decidedly Cool-Whip relations. I could see him in his tailor-made dress pants, bought during a work trip to Singapore--one of his few indulgences. And the knit shirt he used to wear for family occasions that didn't demand a jacket or tie (although he had exquisite taste in ties; unlike many men, he was willing to wear ties with extravagantly beautiful patterns, although he generally favored clothes that were simple and quietly stylish. His dark hair fell across his brow and he watched with concentration and delight as the cream slowly, inevitably, and yet magically turned from its liquid state.
Whipping the cream was always the last chore he did before we headed out to the car (this was in the pre-daughter days). All those holiday outings--so uneventful, so unremarkable, and so, so precious.

I suppose I should tell you that I whipped the cream today, in his memory, as the salt tears fell into it.

Instead, I used the mixer. Sometimes, I am a coward.

I miss you, my love.

Labels: Holidays

posted by Unknown @ 1:12 PM