The food of Love

If music be the food of love, play on. What an interesting idea, The food of love. I wonder, what food would be the food of love? Lobster? Chocolate? Asparagus.

Driving home from work I was thinking about what dish we were going to take to the evening potluck. J. and I were celebrating the anniversary of our fifteenth wedding and decided to go to a church social. It was a potluck and everyone had to bring a dish. Potlucks can be a nightmare, potlucks and buffets. I always try to bring something that I can eat, that way, if there is nothing there for me to eat, I can always find comfort in a little home cookin’. The other problem with potlucks is the dish itself. It can't be too complicated, if can't be frozen or it will thaw. It can’t be a hot dish or it will cool. It has to be baby bear perfect.

Traffic is a great time for thinking. Thinking, that is, unless you find yourself screaming at the idiot that is parked in the slow lane, and the moron who just flew past you in the fast. Suddenly it hit me. Asparagus. I called J.

“Did you happen to pick up any asparagus at the store?”
“I did!” she replied gleefully.
“Cool! I was thinking we could take the asparagus salad to the party tonight.”
“Oh my God, that is so weird. I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Wow. That is a coincidence.”
“Great minds think alike.”
“Birds of a feather.”

She didn’t have to say another word. We were both thinking the same thought. Here on the occasion of our fifteenth wedding anniversary, not having seen much of each other in weeks what with school, work and shuttling the kids around to their extra curricular activities, we had both somehow managed to stumble on the exact same idea. That, or we needed a new, thicker cookbook.

Oh, but Love grows where my Rosemary goes And nobody knows like me.

As a child we used to hunt wild asparagus in our back yard in the spring. I planted some in the flowerbed in our backyard a few years ago. Now, D. loves to hunt them, though she isn’t tromping through an acre of German olive trees, nettles, and poison oak to get them, at least she gets her hands dirty.

At the party one guest asked me the ingredients. “Asparagus, red onion, red bell pepper, cilantro”
“And the dressing?”
“Coconut milk, lime juice, sugar, soy sauce…”
"Oh, it’s got soy? I can’t eat soy. I gave it up when I got pregnant.”

Later that night I was standing in the kitchen looking for a bottle opener when the host walked into the room.

“Great salad. But I can already tell I ate asparagus when I peed.”
“What?”
“You know, The way asparagus makes your pee smell.”
I didn’t know, but I understood. “Yeah, coffee does the same thing to me, I can always tell when I have had too much.”

He looked a little taken back, but then, he had already opened the door. Apparently producing odorous urine from asparagus was a universal human characteristic, whereas coffee was not. “Well, you know…” he trailed off and made a hasty retreat to the living room. I glanced around at the remaining bowls on the table, several dished picked clean, mashed potatoes with bacon, and kabobs of various meats. I picked up a plastic spoon and reached for the bowl of asparagus salad.