Best Food Friends
Alice Lowe
Word Count 787
We shared the same last name and were both involved in San Diego’s feminist community in the early eighties. Occasionally one or the other would be asked, “Any relation to ___?” We were just names to each other until finally, we met. “At last!” I said, or was it she?
A couple of years later, L. hired me, fresh out of graduate school, for an administrative position at Planned Parenthood. We quickly became friends, seeking each other out with work, then personal issues. We discovered common bonds, including our love of food. Whether eating leftovers from home in the communal lunchroom or making the rounds of the area’s many restaurants, we swapped meals, stories, recipes. A food-centric clique of two, we ate off each other’s plates, taking and bestowing bites. Once she nibbled away, bit by bit, the entire crunchy top of my blueberry muffin—the best part—before I’d had a bite. “Oh no,” L. said. “I didn’t mean to take the whole thing.” I glared. She grimaced. We laughed.
Our co-workers tutted and tsked over what they considered our obsession. In an old Dorothy Parker story, the narrator is bored by a dinner companion whose conversation never rises from the meal in front of them. “His soul can’t rise above food,” she thinks. But from haute cuisine to tacos at a street cart, food offered such pleasure. It lifted our souls. Now I cringe at the label of “foodie,” with its implications of elitism and one-upmanship, but at the time we wore it proudly.
L. and I grew closer over the next five years, entrusting each other with concerns and confidences, whether work, family, or existential. We delighted in our shared surname and would, on cue, sing the “Sisters” song from White Christmas. Before I left for a six-month stay in England, she gave me a going-away lunch at Pacifica Grill, our favorite restaurant. She had flutes of sparkling wine awaiting me at the table on my arrival, and we indulged in the sublime mussels, the tangy mustard catfish, the ultimate crème brûlée.
During my sabbatical I yearned for Mexican food—tacos, enchiladas, burritos—a mainstay of my Southern California regimen. I’d have embraced even Taco Bell, which had launched its first British sites in London, but we were three hours away in Devonshire. I wanted to make my own, but not with canned tortillas, the only ones I found. I whined about all this to L., in the frequent missives we exchanged on thin blue self-sealing aerogrammes. Midway through my stay, my daughter came for a visit, bringing a carefully wrapped and insulated package of fresh homemade tortillas that L. had sent with her. Reheated, slathered with butter: salvation.
When, after a four-year commuter courtship, my now-spouse and I decided on a small, informal wedding, L. offered her spacious patio and culinary wizardry. She and I created the menu together and spent two days preparing an array of elegant dishes in creamy hues, she at the helm and I her subservient sous chef. Chilled farfalle with crab and homemade (“from scratch?” I said, “Really?”) mayonnaise, and pâte feuilletée (or was it pâte brisée?) filled with creamed mushrooms, the delicate pastry a painstaking and, for me, stress-inducing endeavor even under her skilled tutelage. “Can’t we just buy it and stuff it?” I asked.
Our bond remained strong for another ten years. Sometimes it was hard to separate the personal from the professional, but misunderstandings were rare and quickly smoothed over. When I retired and she was promoted into my former position, I expected our close friendship to continue, but instead it developed cracks, signs of strain. There was no identifiable rift, and at first we chalked it up to our new roles and less frequent contact. Both of us wary and defensive, neither of us able to broach the divide, the inevitable cessation followed. I’m certain to this day that she was the one who pulled away, and I felt abandoned, but I suspect she thought I was in some way to blame.
We’d been out of touch a while when a former co-worker invited me to lunch for my birthday. “Is it OK if L. joins us?” she asked. Of course, I replied. I wavered between missing her and feeling miffed, but I anticipated our reunion. At a Japanese restaurant near their office, we hugged, both of us pleasant but reserved. Awkward. Like casual acquaintances. “How’s the family?” “Oh, fine; yours?” “Fine….” We talked about movies, travels, work, the weather, restaurants—safe and neutral topics. At our first bite of the seared albacore roll with ponzu sauce, I could swear there was a mutual flicker of connection in our eye contact. But it wasn’t enough to rekindle a flame—like a neglected campfire, nothing remained but ashes. I’m still mystified.
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Alice writes about life, language, food and family. Her essays have been widely published, including this past year in Big City Lit, Borrowed Solace, FEED, Drunk Monkeys, Midway, Eat Darling Eat, Eclectica, Fauxmoir, Idle Ink, Superpresent, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. Her work has been cited twice in Best American Essays and nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. Alice has authored essays and reviews on Virginia Woolf’s life and work and is a regular contributor at Blogging Woolf. She lives in San Diego, California, and posts at www.aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com