There are two things I love: Food and Sex. I suppose that why I have the obsession with the program “Cooking Live” on the Food Network, and the show’s host Sara Moulton. Sara spends her time cooking food, live on television, and takes phone calls from people having trouble with recipes and ingredients. She can prepare a fabulous Schwartzwald Kirchetort (Black Forest Cherry cake) all the while telling some poor housewife in South Carolina how to make cock-a-leekie soup.
My lust for Sara differs from my love for food, however. I prefer to savor food; look at it, smell it, taste it, mix the flavors in my mouth. Sara, I want to ravage.
I imagine our meeting: she’s in town sampling the cuisine of some fine, five-star restaurant. I hear she is around and stake out a place in the corner. We eye each other from across the dining room. I send her a note with a glass of merlot.
“Meet me at 4th and Baker-10:00pm” is all the note said.
At the corner of 4th and Baker is a greasy spoon diner that makes the best lasagna (and the worst coffee) in North America. This place is my guilty pleasure, and the real five-star restaurant in our community. A person can walk out of that place stuffed to the gill with the most satisfying food and would still have gotten change back on a five-dollar bill. I’ve taken my usual spot in a booth near the door.
Five minutes after ten and I see her peering in through the front door. I catch her eye and signal for her to join me. I can see from the look on her face that she, too, appreciates true comfort food in an authentic American setting. The pretense of fine dining stripped away, Sara and I share easy conversation over a plate of Archie’s famous lasagna and a basket of French fries.
Suddenly, too soon, it’s eleven o’clock and the diner is anxious to close. I explain to Sara that I want our night to last. She agrees.
“I’m at the Marriott. Room 1236.” Sara tells me unabashedly. “You know what goes with lasagna and French fries, don’t you?” She’s teasing my palate.
“A chardonnay, right?” I tease her back.
“No. A bubble bath.” She looks serious. “I’m going to catch a cab, you get some bubbles for the tub and meet me there.”
A twenty-four hour supermarket has all the ingredients I need for the night. Thirty minutes later I’m knocking on the door of room 1236 at the Marriott. Sara answers the door dressed in a thin, satin robe. I thrust the bag at her. She takes it and I reach in pulling out a large bottle of “Mr. Bubbles,” then two plastic champagne glasses and a bottle of Mogen David.
“The water is running, let me pour this,” Sara says taking the bubble bath. “You pour that.”
I twist off the cap of the wine. Though she appreciated the joke, I began to wish I had stopped at a liquor store and picked up something nice. The wine splashes out of the bottle and into the glasses as I pour.