Ten: Gourmet Chef.
“In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”
-Julia Child
My Aunt Sheridan is not a good cook. She's not one of those aunts in books who always have pies and cookies and make elaborate dinners every night. In fact, she's really more like that hopeless mom who means well but really shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen, ever. Except that she's not my mom, she's my aunt. Regardless of what she is, though, if she ever appears within twenty feet of your refrigerator and/or stove, I suggest running for your life.
She really, truly, honestly cannot cook.
She sure thinks she can, though. She's constantly bringing home crazy recipes and ingredients, but I think she just pours everything into a bowl and puts that in the oven, because the dishes really never taste very good. Ever.
But Aunt Sheridan is nothing if not persistent. No matter how many times Uncle Dillon subtly gags on his food at the dinner table, she always keeps coming up with new poisons—I mean, meals. Sometimes I just think she's trying to spite him. Except that she forgets that I live in the house too, and I also have a taste-buds that cry out in pain whenever her cooking comes anywhere near them. Or maybe she does remember, she just doesn't care. Because that wouldn't surprise me.
On Tuesday, Aunt Sheridan came home from work with a dead body slung over her shoulder. That is, the dead body of a gigantic fish that was as big as her head and twice as thick. And she has a big head.
Apparently, she'd been watching the Food Network again, and Rachel Ray or Paula Dean or one of those people who can actually cook fried a whole fish, and now she was determined to do the same. She didn't even listen to my protest that, sometime between breakfast and dinner, I'd decided to become vegetarian and therefore couldn't eat meat.
“Sheridan, are you sure you want to try this?” That was Uncle Dillon, who was shouting into the kitchen from his permanent evening position on the recliner, watching the Ducks football game. Aunt Sheridan just clucked her tongue and said that Julia Child always took risks in her cooking, so why shouldn't she?
Julia Child this, Julia Child that. Julia Child is her idol. Julia Child was also a gourmet chef. Aunt Sheridan is not. She just likes to pretend.
I did my homework in the kitchen as she cooked, which meant spending an hour trying not to focus on the noxious smell in the air. It was easier than usual, actually, because I wasn't really doing my homework but wondering if you were doing your homework, or if you had done it already, and if your mom was a good cook because if she was, could I possibly come over for dinner everyday for the rest of high school?
By the time Aunt Sheridan called us in for dinner, I had scribbled messy circles all over my paper and done approximately half a calculus problem. I figured I probably wouldn't end up doing my math homework that night, but I didn't mind because you were much more interesting than derivatives.
Uncle Dill waddled in, grumbling and rubbing his overhanging stomach. I don't know where his gut came from, since he hardly ever touches his wife's cooking except to poke it with a fork to make sure it doesn't bite.
It smelled pretty awful in the kitchen, and while I was pretty good at pretending it didn't, Uncle Dillon is very insensitive to those kinds of things and made sure to point out the rancid aroma. Aunt Sheridan told him to sniff his shirt, because she could have sworn it was coming from him.
They love each other, really. They just have a funny way of showing it.
The food, as usual, was around ten degrees below terrible. I don't know what happened, but that fish turned into brown slop by the time Aunt Sheridan was through with it. And as for the taste? I guess if you want to describe it well, it'd be somewhere between puke-inducing and barf-worthy. Uncle Dillon made sure that was obvious, because he kept coughing and hacking every time he swallowed a bite. I just kept my head down. Sometimes my aunt forgets that I'm there and I can escape with only a half-cleaned plate.
And then sometimes, like that night, I can't.
It had been maybe ten minutes when Aunt Sheridan asked, “So, Sam. Where did you go yesterday?” and I just stared at her blankly with my half-opened mouth stuffed with food.
“Uh...on a walk?”
“Really? Because I could have sworn I saw you walking into that ballet studio down the street.” She smirked. Aunt Sheridan is a professional snoop. “Are you sure there wasn't a girl involved?”
Your face flashed into my mind, flushed and smiling. Well, sure there was a girl involved, but we only hugged and that didn't mean anything really, or maybe it did, I don't know. Surely it meant something that you invited me there, but I really have no idea because girls are practically a foreign language to me.
Consequently, I said: “Um...”
“Leave the boy alone, Sher,” Uncle Dill grumbled, making a face at his forkful. “He's nearly eighteen; he can do what he wants.”
Aunt Sheridan doesn't let things go so easily. “But look at him, Dill, he's blushing!” she gushed. I was blushing? I wasn't trying to. I swear, sometimes it just happens. “Maybe Sam has a little crush?” She said “crush” with two syllables, a big, sneaky grin on her face.
“Or maybe,” muttered Uncle Dill, “he's been poisoned by your godawful cooking.”
Aunt Sheridan slapped her husband across the arm with a nearby oven mitt, and I scratched nervously at the back of my neck. Maybe, I thought, it was a little bit of both.
