Jacqueline’s Feast

On Sunday, I got up at six in the morning with Emma and began to cook. My aunts (Aunt Charlyne, the one with terminal lung cancer and Aunti Sandi, the one she now lives with) were set to arrive a mere 12 hours later, so I needed to get started! Time was a-wastin! I planned a fully home cooked meal in their honor, given that my one aunt should start chemo on Thursday. I bought most of my groceries at Whole Foods, including organic lean beef for my beef stew. Fresh rosemary, French butter (does it really taste better?), Russian Banana potatoes, the finest chocolate, organic raspberries, etc. I made the beef stew from scratch, used Julia Child’s master recipe French rolls, and finished with a lovely flour-less chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. By the time I crawled back in bed for a short nap at 11:30 am, the bread was doing its second rise, the stew was cooling for being refrigerated, and my finger was properly smashed in a battle between the bottle opener and the bottle where my finger lost!

Despite almost passing out, I pressed on with my cooking. I tasted the stew multiple times. I added more Worcestershire, a splash of vinegar, some Dijon mustard. I kneaded the bread, trying to keep both blood and cotton ball fragments out of the dough. I chopped the chocolate, measured out the sugar, began the sauce, found my candy thermometer, and turned the AC down to seventy degrees. I vacuumed. I dusted. I cleared the paperwork off the dining room table and put it in neat piles away from where they would notice. I picked out fun china; I posses around 10 different ones, so this is not an easy task! Napkins, glasses, silver, serving pieces, all placed just so in-order to welcome them with sight as well as smell.

I could not help but think of Babette’s Feast as I laboured. In the movie, Babette has run away from Paris, where she worked as a renowned chef, as a political refugee. She finds work cleaning and cooking for two elderly Dutch spinster sisters. She cooks rather bland pitiful fare due to their preference. The sisters avoided pleasure all their lives out of devotion to God. (Of course, if God wanted this type of dutifulness, why did God create an entire world for us to delight in? But I digress.) There is no colour, no joy, no flavour, no mirth, no spirit (or Spirit?) to their lives. For many years, Babette toils in this grey existence, but love flourishes within all three of their lives even in this world of grey tones. After winning a small lottery, Babette plans and creates a beautiful meal for the sisters and their fellow congregants. This Feast does not just serve to delight and astound their senses, but also to pour out Babette’s love on the sisters for their kindness to her. Babette’s Feast is indeed a form of Holy Communion, which never should focus on strict table laws, but always on an open table of love and community. Babette works for days to create her Eucharist, and she selflessly pours her whole heart, body and soul into each and every dish. The delight the sisters take over each morsel left me both jealous–although I am not too sure about the Turtle Soup served–and open hearted at the love flowing between everyone at this meal. The grey banished in the light of love’s myriad of colour.

Jacqueline’s Feast could not compare when it came to epicurean delight, but I did manage to knead love into every roll, sprinkle compassion into the stew, and stir mirth into the cake batter. We sat down, with a short prayer by me. I passionately prayed that God would be with us, and especially with the person most deserving of winning at Super Boggle. My Aunt Charlyne said. “Nice try, but prayers cannot help you now.” We all broke out laughing.

See, I have only beat her at Super Boggle and Trivia Pursuit one time apiece. In a recent email to her–where I urged her to consider not doing the chemo at all–I reminded her of these two seminal events. I wrote her saying:

In my mind I go back over my whole life experience with you. My first memory? Being out on the horse farm with you and calling you “Aunt Charlyne.” You told me that you were “nobody’s aunt” and to call you Charlyne. I guess I am a true Osborne Woman–headstrong and all–because my whole life I have completely ignored you and called you “aunt” anyways! (laughing) You are not just my mother’s sister, but you are my aunt, and I love you. You have a place of honor in my heart, and my experiences of you are real. I remember the family times when you would be pissed off (The Trinity-as I like to call Aunt Frances, Mother and Aunt Gail-can be a real pain in the ass and very self righteous sometimes.) and the wonderful fun, humor and intelligence you brought. Of course there is also my fear of your amazing game-playing abilities. I can still tell you the year and the holidays that you have ever been beaten at ANYTHING by me! Christmas 1989 Betsy and I beat you at Trivia Pursuit on a Sports and Leisure question (our biggest weakness) where the answer was Martha Graham, whom I had just studied in my college Humanities class. Then in 1997, again at Christmas, I beat you at Super Boggle. All my friends know about this and that I figured the only way to even the playing field between us was for you to get Alzheimer’s! Not that I would wish that on you just to be able to beat you, but it did cross my mind! (really laughing now)

Jacqueline’s Feast ended with me and Aunti Sandi being shown our hats by the Whiz, but also with being able to say and hear, “I love you.” What joy to hear her laugh, throwing her head back and cackling! How fun to see her reach for her third roll and smear it with lots of good butter! How precious to show both of

them my Granddaddy’s newly recovered chair sitting in my Living Room, and to show her where I put the antique dresser they drove to North Carolina to get for me back in 1991. Most importantly, what a wonderful sacred moment with those whom I love, especially the one who has spent so much of her life separated from us all.

I spent a good part of Monday crying–and here I am at it again–over how precious her time really is and how much I want each one of her moments to be poured to overflowing with more love, care, good food, laughter, family, games, and joy than she can handle. She has spent a lifetime without enough, so I figure it is high time she gets too much. (See my other post about this.)

So many of us are starving, like my Aunt Charlyne, for more love, more joy, more kindness, more understanding. I really believe in being the very thing you think is lacking in the world. Too many mean people? Be kind. Too much noise? Be quiet. Too much media? Turn off the TV. Too much fighting? Be peaceful. To much pain? Love more. Not enough time? Spend what you have loving and holding and cherishing before you miss the chance.

And of course: Chocolate batter on the spoon? Call “fins” and lick it up!

(”Fins” is a family expression akin to “shot-gun” or “dibs.”)