Level: Chef
Your basket:
Main Ingredients:
mother-in-law
dog walker
lamb shoulder
meal worms
bird

Spice Pack:
1/3 whisper of delight
1/8 tablespoon of jealousy


My mother-in-law liked to flirt with me, but always with the bird-like flair of someone who can fly away at an instant. Not that she was very mobile. She mostly lay about and sauntered the way people with money do. The flamboyant dog walker, an enterprising young man with an accent, got the same tired wit, throaty laugh and lascivious smile from her as I did. He loved it and played along. Maybe she thought I was so gullible as to expose weakness. Ha.

With every one of those occasions my wife had to force down a sour 1/8 tablespoon serving of jealousy. I don’t know why the dog walker couldn’t see the question written on her face: why not play up to her instead, perhaps coo something in her ear, spiced with a 1/3 whisper of delight?

I kept my head down and tried to stay away from their strange mélanges. Someday soon we would be able to move on, but in the meantime I kept busy by writing, cooking and cleaning. That was good for my sanity. Once, when I found meal worms in the pantry, I served them up roasted, with a rosemary and thyme-encrusted lamb shoulder I recall, no one the wiser. The dog got mine.