(source: stocksnap)

Christmas dinner

I heard about Edward's promise before he died.

Valerie is Edward's daughter and an old friend I have known for a long time. She told me this story shortly after her mother died. Her mother, Paula, was ill for many years. A few days before her ninety-fifth birthday, she was awake and unconscious, but one day she suddenly sat up in bed and specifically asked to talk to her dear husband.

"listen to me, Eddie. Paula's tone is firm and powerful. "You can't come with me now, or our little family will end here.

Paula knew that Edward had made up his mind. He would rather die with her than live alone. That's not right, she said, and urged him to live. After he finally agreed, she serenaded the man who had been married for 69 years. The first song I started was "My Funny Lover", and then I sang the famous Broadway musical songs and folk songs in the charts in the 194s and 195s in one breath, and the lyrics were different. At that time, they were still young, still full of ambitions, and believed that they could make a splash in the entertainment industry. Paula's singing is so clear that she can't recognize that she has suffered from chest infection for several days, and it is difficult to even speak. She ended with "All You" and sang in pieces: "I love your north, east, west and south, but I love all of you the most.

She passed away twenty-four hours later, in October 29. Within a few weeks after her death, Edward was so sad that he found it almost impossible to keep his promise to Paula. He sat alone in a quiet apartment and at the dining table, where his family had had many lively and pleasant dinners. Finally, Edward was admitted to the Lenox Hill Hospital. The doctors did a series of tests, but they couldn't find anything wrong with him. They planned to discharge him the next day.

"I'm afraid he doesn't want to live. "Violet said, sitting next to me in the waiting room of the hospital. It was Christmas Eve and we agreed to have dinner together. Valerie recommended a restaurant around the corner of the hospital, where she dined with her father.

This is a small restaurant on the third street with no special features. After we sat down, we poked the lackluster red snapper, and we both cried. It was originally the eve of Paula's birthday, and Valerie was still in mourning for her mother. Now she is very worried about her father, afraid that he will not live.

I'm not sure why I burst into tears when I heard Valerie tell Paula's singing. I haven't met Edward, and although it was a very tearful scene, I still can't help but feel that part of the reason is that my own unhappiness has been exposed naked. I have just moved to new york and worked as a reporter in a newspaper. I have to go on a business trip at Christmas. My marriage is about to fall apart, even though I try my best to pretend that everything is fine. And I'm very worried that divorce will have a great impact on my young daughter. I vaguely put forward my dilemma-I didn't want Valerie to worry about my problems when her father was ill-and she suggested that I have dinner with Edward.

"He is good at cooking. Violet said while crying, perhaps she hoped this sentence would arouse my curiosity. When she returned to Canada, I would visit Edward voluntarily. Her sister Lola is an artist and lives in Greece with her husband.

I don't know if it's because the delicious dinner is too tempting, or if I'm just so lonely that it's attractive to spend time with a depressed 9-year-old man. Maybe I wanted to do anything for Valerie, a friend, or I was curious about her father, which led me to Edward's door two months later. Anyway, whatever the reason, I never thought that meeting Edward would change my life.

for our first dinner for two, I wore a loose straight dress and sandals made of black linen. I knocked at the door gently, and then rang the bell. A few minutes later, a tall old gentleman suddenly opened the door, with a smile in his eyes, took my hand and kissed me on both cheeks.

"darling! "He said. "I have been waiting for you.

grilled sirloin steak, red wine sauce

tender potatoes

chocolate souffle

malbec wine

At first I always brought a bottle of wine to Edward's apartment.

"You don't need to bring anything, baby. He said that although I often ignore this suggestion, I feel very unaccustomed to eating empty-handed.

and there's no need to knock or ring the doorbell, Edward told me. He will know if I have come, because as soon as I walk into the door of this apartment, the concierge will call to inform him. Besides, his door was unlocked, but soon after we met, he insisted on giving me a key. I was afraid that when he dozed off on the sofa in the morning or afternoon, I wanted to come and see him, but the door was locked. The key he gave me was set on a purple plastic chain, and the small card on the key ring was written with Edward and his phone number in bold black letters. We both know that I won't really use this key to open the door of his apartment, but I accepted it politely-to show my friendship and remind me every day that Edward is now a part of my life.

every time I bring wine, Edward will write my name on the label and stuff it into the temporary wine cellar in the hall closet. The wardrobe is where he hangs his thick winter coat. Every time before I arrived, he chose the wine to accompany the meal, and the wine I brought was reserved for the next more suitable meal.

at an early dinner, I made a mistake. I brought pickled cod croquettes, which I made according to my mother's recipe. I should never have thought that he would put fried fish balls on the table with his dishes. I gave him this dish without warning. In the early days when we met, I never thought how much thought Edward put into preparing every meal. I just handed over the packet of fried fish balls wrapped in tin foil, and I knew I was rude. I also saw Edward's doubts for a moment. But he graciously accepted my gift and invited me to dinner another day this week so that we could share the fried fish balls.

Edward is not a snob, nor is he an unbearable foodie. He just likes to do things by the rules. He pays great attention to everything he creates-whether it's the furniture in the living room or his articles. He built all the furniture himself, even the cloth cover of the chair. Moreover, he writes poems and short stories in a proper way, and then patiently rewrites the draft on white paper until he is satisfied with it, and then gives it to one of his daughters for typing. He has a similar attitude towards cooking, although he didn't start cooking until his seventies in his later years. "Paula has been cooking for 52 years, and one day I told her that she had worked hard enough and it was my turn. "He said.

Edward learned to cherish good food when he was young. When he was fourteen, he failed a grade, and his parents sent him away from Nashville to spend the summer vacation with his rich aunt and uncle in New Orleans. His aunt Eleanor, a teacher, decided to teach him about discipline and get him back on track. At the same time, she also decided to instruct him to cook French food.

"I was taken into a world I didn't know at all. "He said, recalling a meal at the famous Anthony restaurant in 1934. "I'll never forget the first time I ate soft-shelled crabs. Wrapped in thin batter and fried, served with melted hot cream. It's really delicious.

When he started cooking, he borrowed the French Creole menu from Anthony's restaurant, but he also likes to tell me that he can appreciate simple things. He can still remember eating boiled cabbage when he was a child. "Add a big piece of cream, and that taste is only available in heaven!" And he looked for inspiration everywhere: he claimed that he learned his scrambled egg skills from St. John.

St. John?

He is a cook of the National Railway Administration. "He has been called" Little Brother "all his life. Edward said. The two met on a train trip with Paula, which lasted for ten hours. "He later attended the Baptist Church, and a chef named Miss Emma took care of him. Later, he called himself St. John the Baptist.

St. John has a way with scrambled eggs. Edward asked him the secret of scrambled eggs, and St. John said that he never scrambled eggs at once, but in several steps. Edward also told Paula this trick, and now he insists on teaching me. He took the fresh eggs he bought from the farm and beat them into a bowl. The yolk was bright orange and shiny. He added a little milk or whipped cream, salt and pepper and mixed them well. Then he melted the unsalted cream in a pan, and when the cream was about to turn brown, he only poured in half the egg mixture.

"Never pour it all at once. "Edward reminds me again. "Scrambled eggs should be fried in two batches.

after the eggs in the pot began to bubble and sizzle, Edward gently loosened the eggs with a spoon, turned down the heat, and then poured the remaining half of the egg liquid into it. When the light yellow slippery egg liquid became fluffy and was completely covered with cream, he could get out of the pot.

Growing up in the south, life was hard, so Edward learned to be flexible. He put fresh herbs in a chain bag and put them in the refrigerator; Divide the lard bought from the butcher in Queens into four equal parts, wrap it in wax paper and store it in the refrigerator. Edward likes to shop in food specialty stores, such as Citarella and Gourmet Garage, but he is also very happy to shop in the local market. He doesn't have any fashionable kitchen supplies, and he has hardly turned over several cookbooks I have seen, which are all presented by well-meaning friends.

"It's just cooking, Darling. I asked him why he didn't use recipes, and he answered me like this. "I never feel that I am cooking a dish in the recipe. I'm just too lazy to refer to the recipe. I don't think being tied up by a piece of paper is called a dish. He hung the polished old soup pot and flat-bottomed pot on the nail board, and this plywood was also covered with a layer of tin foil.

I am amazed at the variety of his machine, but I also know that he has his own unique taste. He only uses Sir Henry Gin for martinis, and insists on cucumber juice for smoked salmon, because it can bring out the delicious taste of smoked salmon best. His martini is made of Sir Henry's unsweetened absinthe, which is put in a Belle single-ear glass measuring cup and put in the freezer together with the glass to cool down until the guests arrive. Edward's martinis don't shake or stir-he just pours Gin and absinthe into a measuring glass to let the wine cool naturally. He will decorate the cup with a small piece of cucumber, and he will make the cucumber cool and crisp.

When his eldest daughter, Lola, comes back to live in new york, she brings back some special cooking she learned from Greece. Whenever she touts the advantages of Papiri and olive oil, Edward's face twitches. She suspected that Edward had given away the golden peaches in olive oil that she had baked specially for him. "As long as it is related to cooking or baking, he is particularly picky in some places. "Lola said.

But Edward's steak baked on a hot cast iron grill tonight was taken from the refrigerated meat cabinet in the grocery store. The steak, marinated in balsamic vinegar, is now perfectly roasted and placed on a plate that has been heated in the oven in advance. The oily gravy from the steak overflowed the white porcelain plate and melted into a small pile of tender potatoes boiled with skin. A small piece of cream was placed on it and chopped parsley was sprinkled on it. Finally Edward poured a smooth brown sauce on the steak. It's on the table

The steak is just right soft, and it tastes like the meat provided by the best butcher in Manhattan, instead of being bought from Gristis Supermarket. The sauce has a strong creamy smell. I asked him how he did it, and he immediately took pains to explain it. He even went to the kitchen twice and showed me the semi-glazed sauce, which is the base sauce for most of his sauces.

"You can't be hasty in making semi-glazed sauce. Edward said, while taking out a small plastic box from the refrigerator, the box contained brown sauce, which was cooked with roasted calf bones and vegetables, and then turned off when the soup was concentrated by about three quarters. At that time, the sauce was thick and sticky. Edward, like many French chefs, uses semi-glazed sauce, or "honey sauce" as the base of sauce, and sometimes it is used to cook soup.

"You can't wait for something ready-made. He went on to say, referring to the long homework. "How long is empty, etc. You just have to spend days stewing to make the sauce thicker and thicker.

I nodded to show my understanding and whispered that everything was delicious. I don't want to kiss his ass, but because I am really full of awe. In Edward's eyes, cooking is not just to satisfy hunger. Cooking is a passionate and sometimes even serious art, which can only be shared with a few selected people. He will never provide secret recipes or give recipes to people he thinks have no feelings for cooking. While pouring wine, he told me about a dinner guest who greatly admired his roast chicken steak.

oh, Edward, you must give me the recipe!

But Edward told me that he didn't want to give her his secret recipe for roast chicken steak at all. "Real cooking requires dedication. "He said. "I can see that she is not so devoted.

I learned a lot about cooking from Edward. He taught me how to cook the most extraordinary roast chicken, just a paper bag and a handful of herbs; How to make the perfect pastry ("cream, and add a little lard to the dough, darling." ), then sprinkle a little balsamic vinegar on the dough and let the vinegar adhere to it. But since we met, I knew instinctively that his cooking was by no means limited to the homework of cooking. He taught me the benefits of patience, slow down and think about everything I do.

I asked him how to boneless chickens to make frozen meat rolls, and I knew that the last thing Edward taught me would never be just skinning and boneless. I later realized that he was forcing me to deconstruct my life, cut it into bones and examine the inside, no matter how ugly the result would be.

Edward lives in a state cooperative apartment on Roosevelt Island, which has a terrace, a grouting corridor, a swimming pool and a large landscape window overlooking the East River.

I recently moved to Roosevelt Island at my husband's insistence, which is our last effort to save our marriage. I'm not a willing relocated household like Edward. A year ago, we moved back to Manhattan from Toronto with our young daughter, in order to let me take over the post of investigative reporter in New York Post. Our home is only a few blocks away from Hannah's school on the Upper East Side. Every day, my husband complains about the narrow streets, the crowds on the subway, the garbage in the nearby children's play area, and the need to park across the street-in fact, it's only twice a week. Car owners living in new york can understand the torture that is necessary in a metropolis.

The burden of car maintenance in new york is a nightmare. If you can't afford the monthly fee of at least 4 yuan, you have to park on the side of the road like many New Yorkers, but you have to move the car twice a week to facilitate the cleaning team to clean. Because a parking space is hard to find, most drivers will drive across the street, park in double rows, wait in the car for an hour and a half, and then drive back to their old seats immediately after the cleaning team finishes cleaning.