Feast

Fiction

He envisioned throwing the party in a ballroom, with thousands of guests.

A kid from a small Canadian prairie town, it seemed every opportunity he had gotten led to a better one, and his dreams ballooned as his journey as a chef continued.

But the party remained around twenty people, though he had always, thankfully been able to add someone new when someone inevitably dropped out.

The invitations were strictly word of mouth.

“I’m having a dinner party.”

More than once a new invitee had hugged him.

More than once they had heard the rumors and canceled before the party.

He winnowed his list down to people who understood, people who could keep their mouths shut.

If he never got the party to the ballroom, he would make his point, one year, one person, one couple at a time.

This year was Campbell Johns, who built a garish new software design firm three blocks from the river in the chef’s adopted, bustling American town.

“I’m honored,” Campbell said.

Of course you are, the chef thought. It was the annual time he allowed his ego out of the cage to fly about the room.

Of course you are.

Campbell arrived, his date a local songstress who may or may not have known the chef’s secret.

He would remind her, as he did all the guests, that the menu was strictly confidential, and then he offered Campbell some greasy barbecue chips from a wooden bowl.

Campbell visibly winced at his sip of malt liquor from a plastic cup.

A projector of light shot from behind the eyes of the songstress, who still occasionally played for free near the fountain.

She nodded at chef, who smiled and pulled fully wrapped beef jerky from a metal tin and placed it gingerly at each setting as though it was the finest cut of Japanese aged beef dangling from a set of golden tongs.

The entree was ramen, the sodium so strong you could almost smell it, the plastic packet it had originated from crinkling on the saucer underneath the bowl.

Campbell turned to his date and said, “I’m sorry.”

The young woman sipped her soup and said calmly “why?”

Campbell, flustered, struggled to explain.

The chef, holding his plastic cup aloft, swept into the conversation. It was the moment he lived for.

“If you expected something better from me, or for yourself, you can easily rectify it. You are one phone call away from a better meal, and that’s why you were invited.”

***

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash