Last Meals

I've been contending with lascivious Spanish aristocrats, long lost Brazilians and male bunny boilers lately. It doesn't leave a girl much time for blogging, I must say.

In the midst of this fantastic soap opera, though, I've been contemplating the imagined last meals of famous chefs. Not out of the blue, mind you. Such morbid thoughts rarely occur to me if I'm left to my own devices. In this case, I was helped along by an article in El Pais. It came out a while ago, but it's been skulking around my head refusing to leave like a good fake news article should.

Sea urchins are big for chefs, apparently. Sushi in various outlandish guises. Much complication and a few nods to the simpler things: radishes with olive oil and salt, for example. (Let me just say that you read it here first: the Return of the Radish (November 2007).) Meals at home with family and friends, more attractive if at least one of your homes is on the Amalfi Coast. Micromanagement: half wanted to cook for themselves. And most of all, gluttony: not a single chef limited himself to one dish, not even to two. Why would he and why would anyone for a last meal? I think condemned men should followed the lead here and take greater liberties in placing their orders.

As for my imagined final meal, I'd want it to be as much about memory as about food: the chicken soup my mother would cook when I was sick, the perogies my grandmother used to make, the bacon heavy scrambled eggs that are part of my dad's limited repertoire and now only make the rarest of appearances due to my mother's cholesterol related fears, my other grandmother's nalesniki for dessert. I'd wash it down with some Catalan cava (sparkling wine) in celebration of this part of my life. I would probably be very very sick at some point, but you know, with the last meal and all, that probably wouldn't be my greatest concern.