By Melanie Bryant (Published in Ruminate Magazine, December 2022)
Amuse-Bouche
French; pronounced ah-myuz boosh. Small bites served at the beginning of a multicourse meal.
Translated as mouth amuser. Meant to incite the appetite, explode in the mouth, excite the palate.
Think of the amuse-bouche as the first kiss between lovers; the spark of two lips meeting; something unforgettable.
Baklava
Baklava is my specialty. Layers upon layers of thin buttered phyllo dough, nuts and spices, cinnamon and sugar mixed together. The hardest part is using the knife to cut through the layers before the baklava goes into the oven. The knife has to be sharp enough to cut, not tear the dough. Once baked, golden and crisp, the baklava is topped with a syrup. My secret is five-spice powder—the anise, softly aromatic, that faint taste of licorice, it throws everyone. It’s an unexpected element.
Brain Tumor
In film and literature, brain tumors are a major plot twist, the most unbelievable thing imaginable; it’s a shocking diagnosis; people will try to make sense of it, try to remember where they were and what they were doing right before the brain tumor was discovered.
In real life, it’s a Monday morning in January. My husband and I are eating toast and jam, drinking coffee, making plans for a weekend getaway. He kisses me goodbye and goes out for a run. In real life, it’s a phone call that summons me to the hospital, a nurse who says, “Your husband has had a seizure.” Later, a doctor enters the room and says, “Your husband has a mass on his brain. It’s a tumor.”
Broca’s Area
The tumor in my husband’s brain is growing. The first craniotomy steals his words. My husband loses 20% of his language skills and suffers from Broca’s aphasia. In his brain, he can easily form words, but he can’t produce them in his speech. Everything is mixed up. The stove becomes a rocket ship, the car a BBQ, the cat an elephant.
Craniotomy
A craniotomy is the surgical removal of part of a bone that forms the skull in order to expose the brain. Once the brain is exposed, a neurosurgeon will attempt to resect or remove a tumor. Complications include seizures, stroke, swelling of the brain, brain damage, loss of cognitive and mental functions. The plural of craniotomy is craniotomies. My husband has two craniotomies.
The bone does not grow back, but the tumor does.
Cheese
Once, in a small village on the outskirts of Florence, my husband escorted me through the narrow streets and into a tiny shoebox of a restaurant where we dined on the local fare—bistecca alla Fiorentina and Chianti—chargrilled steak and red wine, and at meal’s end, the waiter wheeled over a lavish gold-gilded cart laden with cheeses and an array of accompaniments. My husband expertly eyed the selection and pointed out a pecorino from the Maremma—the coastal terrain where the lush green hills rolled languidly along, giving way to woodland and flat marshlands, and where, among the fields of sunflowers, the sheep grazed undisturbed, their sweet milk grassy and sharp, a hint of salt from the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The cheese was stark white, paired with a handful of dark red cherries—a shocking contrast—but together, they married into the most perfect of unions. The first taste jolted my senses—the bittersweet cherries, the rich butterfat of the cheese and the grassy herbaceous notes of the wine collided in sweet rhapsody. My husband squeezed my hand, leaned in, and whispered across the table, “What you taste is this day, this place, this time in our lives. How magical it is!”
Crustaceans
Once, in a tiny San Francisco kitchen with a window that opened onto a fire escape, my husband brought home live Dungeness crabs, their claws scissoring wildly into the air before he quickly dispatched them and roasted them whole in a buttery bath of garlic and winter herbs. To cook such a feast in a small space, he opened the window in spite of the cold and foggy mist, and then we huddled at our table, jackets on, while we pulled apart those giant crabs and soaked up the buttery sauce with crusty bread.
Duck
To cook a duck correctly requires a very hot oven of 500 degrees Fahrenheit. For the whole of my life, I was too terrified to cook at this temperature, though my husband begged me to let him roast a duck, describing in great detail the crispy skin and how that succulent meat melts in the mouth. But I never gave in until I knew that my husband was dying. Then, I was no longer afraid to crank the oven up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, even after I disconnected every last smoke alarm.
It was New Year’s Eve. It was raining outside. We were wearing our jackets and our gloves when we sat down at our table to eat that crispy roasted duck. The meat was tender and succulent.
Dying
I recall a Samuel Beckett quote that I once heard in a college literature class:
They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.
I wonder why I never remembered it, how it didn’t cross my mind again until that New Year’s Eve, how clearly I recalled it then, as I wildly tore into the crispy skin of that roasted duck. The clock was ticking to midnight; another year was ending.
Entrée
The fourth course of a classic French menu. Served after the fish course.
Fish
My husband was a self-proclaimed poissonier and rightly so, for under his delicate hand, fish would come alive, sing in the pan, and then willingly surrender to a sauce. His specialties: a fragile skate wing with an earthy beurre noisette, a crispy fillet of halibut cooked in hot cast iron and finished with cherry tomatoes and capers, and a wild salmon, a shade rare, perfectly pink and sauced with butter and a generous handful of tarragon from our garden. The salmon—my favorite—was a labor of love for the painstaking work of removing the pin bones. My husband, though, never complained. He would pour himself a glass of wine before laying the salmon out on a board and then, with a pair of tweezers, pull out each bone, one by one. “For you, my love,” he would say as he ran his fingers along the flesh of the fish, double-checking for any bones that he may have missed.
Glioblastoma Multiforme
Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is an incurable, insidious, fast-growing, and always deadly brain cancer with an average life expectancy of six months; diagnosed in only .59 per 100,000 people; a cancer of unknown cause. A surgeon can never completely remove the tumor. The tumor cells are scattered everywhere throughout the brain.
“Think of GBM as if you mixed a cup of sugar and a cup of cinnamon together,” the neurosurgeon says. “The tumor is the cinnamon. Once it’s mixed in with the sugar, you can never separate the two.” There are always cells left behind, cells looking for a blood source and, once they find it, they will grow incredibly quickly—doubling, tripling, even quadrupling in a matter of weeks.
Grits
My husband loved grits, so I made them for him all the time. When he would come into the kitchen and see the pot on the stove, he would start singing the ‘grits song’ by Little Milton while breaking into a dance. He called it his happy dance.
If I don’t love you, baby
Grits ain’t groceries
Eggs ain’t poultry
(FADES)
A-don’t you know I love you, baby
A-don’t you know I love you, baby
Ev’ryday and.
Getty Museum
The day before the second craniotomy, we held hands as we strolled through the gardens at the Getty Museum, posed before the resplendent bloom of yellow daffodils, purple irises, and a rainbow of tulips. We surveyed the Ancient Egypt exhibit, analyzed every detail of those mummified remains. For lunch, we dined on chicken and waffles and then wandered along the shore of the Pacific, the sand cold on our feet, the waves stinging our ankles. That night, we dined at a little neighborhood restaurant and ate wood-fired artisan pizzas and drank wine and shared a tiramisu so good that it made us both want to cry.
Holiday Cooking
See duck.
Inn
The second craniotomy was at a hospital in Los Angeles. We checked into a Days Inn a few blocks away. One night, when I was back in the room alone, long after midnight, I plugged my old Kindle into a socket to charge and it blew a fuse, cut the lights for the entire building. A kindly old Indian man with a flushed face and a flashlight came to my door, and I ushered him inside so that I could show him the outlet, singed and black, the way that surge hadn’t even been contained there but burned out onto the wall. I needed someone else to see the damage, so I pointed to the enormous and ominous dark cloud on the aged and worn blue paint.
Joie de Vivre
Once, in San Francisco, we packed a picnic lunch of bread and cheese and, in a rented car, drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin Headlands, which lie at the bridge’s northern footing, where the juxtaposition of pillow-black basalt against the iconic orange landmark is softened only by the bluest of skies. There, on a narrow bluff, while the songbirds sang, we spotted a kettle of hawks and watched their courtship dance as they swooped and sailed and glided through the cables, around the towers, effortlessly weaving between the suspension ropes. It’s here where, each year, these solitary raptors return to find their mate, that lifelong companion.
If I close my eyes, I can still taste that runny cheese—an Époisse—aged and earthy and buttery on my tongue—and still hear, too, the crack of the crust as my husband tore into the baguette and handed me a piece.
Korean Food
Korean food is meant to be a collective experience; sharing a meal; grilling together. We both liked Korean BBQ, especially the kimchi—the fermented cabbage with gut-friendly bacteria eaten for good health and a long life. The last part was only hype.
Lamb Bolognese
Once, I came home after a long day to find my husband making fresh pasta on our ironing board. Strands of pasta hung like streamers, over cabinet doors, from wooden spoons laddered between canisters and wine bottles; a pot of lamb Bolognese simmered on the stove. My husband was joyous, filled with pride as he showed off, with floured hands, his artistry.
I was tired and cranky. How I still regret that, even now.
Mollusks
Such strange creatures—oysters, mussels, and abalone.
In California, the oysters were small and fine—the flat French Hog from the ultra-briny waters of Tomales Bay, faintly metallic, and the sweet and salty Kumamoto from farther up the coast in Bodega Bay—their subtle and heavenly nuances far too ephemeral for a spicy sauce, so instead, my husband would whip up a tart mignonette that played perfectly against the taste of the Pacific and, when I smiled with delight, he would remind me, “Food is all about a time and a place—an everchanging landscape.”
To his point, the best mussels where just off of Union Square, at a tiny French bistro on a back alley where the tables were set up outside and covered in white linen. The mussels were cooked in wine and heavy cream, perfumed with fresh herbs and garlic. In the warm sunshine of October afternoons, we’d slurp that magical broth from big white bowls and drink glasses of wine before walking, half-buzzed, through the city streets.
And it was on the beach, bundled in sweaters and watching the sun set, when we first ate abalone—that rarest and sweetest of finds—fresh from the hands of the free divers who plunged into the cold and watery depths, knives in hand, and then pried those prehistoric mollusks from the rocks as their rasping mouths were still feeding on the kelp.
New Orleans
My husband was a New Orleanian of French descent. He came from people who prided themselves on their hospitality and joie de vivre. He never failed to greet his hospice nurse with a smile, a wink, and sometimes, a knowing tilt of his head.
Oeuf
The French word for egg. I never knew anyone who loved eggs more than my husband, especially those from our neighbor’s chickens. The yolks were a vivid orange, deep and streaky, a sign that the chickens were given free reign of the pasture, a chance to forage the bounty of the earth that was ripe with seeds and roots and worms.
Patisserie
Once, on a foggy morning in San Francisco, my husband led me by the hand over the hills, through the sleepy city streets, and then off the beaten path and down a less traveled side street where, through the mist, a barely visible neon sign revealed a patisserie. The faded red door framed a long rectangular panel of glass, steamed opaque from the ovens inside, and upon opening, a ringing bell announced our arrival.
As the door shut behind us and we took our place in line, we were blanketed by the heavenly sweet aromas of burnt sugar and butter and yeast, a heady mix so sublime that I still recall how I steadied myself against my husband and leaned into his warmth. The whole of the shop was quiet and still—churchlike—except for the roar of the oven and the rustle of the brown paper bags as the attendant slid each order inside.
Up ahead, over shoulders and between shapes, I saw the variety of pastries in the case—airy croissants, their buttery sheen glistening in the light, delicate heart-shaped palmiers, and palm-sized tarts, finished with a single jewel-like raspberry, an emerald sepal still attached. And then, with our own brown paper bag, two heart-shaped palmiers inside, we set off again on that long walk back home.
Roux
French; one of the Mother Sauces. Fat and flour are cooked together, married, until the desired color is reached. Roux is used as a base for, and thickener for, gumbo. A dark or mahogany roux is used for game and meat gumbos, while a blond roux is used for seafood gumbo. In New Orleans, a man is known by his roux. Everyone wanted to know the secret to my husband’s gumbo, how he cooked his roux.
Stroke
During the second craniotomy, the neurosurgeon tried to tease away the tumor’s tentacles and nicked an artery. My husband suffered an interoperative stroke. No one knew what the damage would be. It was a waiting game, waiting for my husband to gain consciousness—if he ever did.
Minutes ticked by. Hours passed. Days ended and began again.
Then, I saw it—an essence, a spark, a flash of light—and then movement—an eyelash that fluttered, a nostril that flared, a finger that twitched. He’s still alive, I thought, and then I waited for him to open his eyes. I was terrified that they would be flat and lifeless, that he would blankly stare into space, that there would be no flicker of recognition. But when his eyes finally did open, I bent down nearer to his face, and I could see into him; I could see that he was still in there; I could see that he was still with me.
Trout a la Meunière
My husband’s favorite dish was Trout a la Meunière, which means in the style of the miller’s wife who, according to French lore, cooked everything in a coating of flour. A clever woman, if you ask me, since it turned out that dredging the fillets in flour before tossing them into the hot pan was the secret to the dish—those floury bits and hot butter browned into a most delightful and nutty roux. The fish was always perfectly flaky and moist.
Umami
One of the five tastes along with sweet, sour, salty, bitter. From the Japanese, meaning essence of deliciousness. Taste receptors on the tongue send impulses to the central cortex of the brain where perceptions can be identified.
Valentine’s Day
Once, we bought each other the same Valentine’s Day card and laughed so hard we nearly cried.
My husband, the romantic. The special dinners, the exotic orchids, Neruda’s love poems.
Favorite Valentine’s gifts that my husband gave me:
- Garden clogs, tulip bulbs, and flower seeds
- A velvet, heart-shaped box filled with fine French truffles
- An easel and tins of paint
My husband died on a February afternoon, three days after Valentine’s Day. From the window, I watched the stormy sky, the unsettled clouds. Down below, along the garden path, I could see the first tender tips of the tulips waiting to bloom.
Words
Before the second craniotomy, my husband said goodbye to me before he disappeared behind the hospital doors. But then, he quickly reappeared, running back to me. That one last smile, that one last kiss, that one last embrace as he whispered in my ear that one last I love you.
Xenoglossy
My husband called me Mon petit poi! French for my little pea—a token of love.
After the stroke, when my husband finally talked again, he spoke in French. He had never learned to speak French—at least not in the fluency of whole sentences. An old aunt said that when he was a child, his great grandmother would read to him in French.
The doctor said they knew very little about how the brain works.
My husband never said my name again. Instead, he called me Mon. People heard this and pitied me; they thought that he was calling me mom or that he had forgotten my name entirely. But I knew that he was calling me Mon, and that was enough for me.
Yoke
1. A wooden crosspiece that fits over the necks of two animals and is then attached to the plow or cart they are meant to pull.
2. A culinary term meaning a binding agent.
Yoke, sometimes confused with yolk. The latter, the yellow-orange center of an egg that provides nutrients for a new life growing within.
Zest
The topmost part of a citrus peel; fragrant.
Also, meaning with great emotion.
Synonyms: gusto; relish; passion; an appetite for life; love.
See Amuse Bouche.
Melanie Bryant 