Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction!

by Lizz Lund

  “Nope,” I answered.

  “Well,” K. began, “it’s like a speakeasy, but for fine cuisine! Apparently enough haute cuisine chefs and gourmands are done with the highbrow, linen-tablecloth, silver service thing. So now these people invite you to their private residences for fabulous food at great prices. It’s like a big party, with everyone sitting at the same table. It’s a true gourmet experience!”

  Armand fixed himself into the conversation scornfully by asking, “Who are zee vaiters?”

  “There are none!” K. said, throwing his hands up and sailing the remnants of his frozen vodka over our heads and into a hanging plant.

  “How do you know about this?” I asked. “And how do you know they’re not some kind of scam to rob you? Or sell your organs while you’re lying naked in a bathtub?”

  “Oh no-ooo! That’s just the point. It’s a very exclusive friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend thing…”

  K. bobbed from Armand to me. Armand and I responded by trying to sip the remnants of our drinks in unison. Instead, we succeeded by bumping elbows and hurling our drinks backwards over our shoulders. Oh well. I decided it was Lancastrian for good luck.

  K. checked to make sure there were no hostile reactions to our vodka missiles.

  “They are invitation only, like dining in someone’s home,” he said.

  “But you are served!?” Armand asked.

  “Oui!” K beamed, tickled to pull out another of the few foreign phrases he knew. K. hadn’t done very well with foreign languages in high school and was just a teensy bit jealous of Armand’s accent. He was always endearingly proud when he could throw in a foreign phrase.

  “…and you PAY for being invited?” I ventured for the necessary cash information.

  “Mina, dear, you pay for the experience; it’s not just a meal!” K. had an annoying way of making hunger tantamount to treason. As if anyone would consider eating because they were hungry.

  “Right then,” I said, and looked into my very empty glass, imagining I was swirling something fuller. “And the board of health licenses?”

  “And zee drink license. These are allowed to sell?”

  “Oh, you are both just too much! I’ll ring up Gillian! Gillian will know! We should all go and try this! It’ll be fun!”

  I muttered an oath. Armand placed a curse. Someone baptized our shoes with a gin and tonic, and we took that as a cosmic hint to pay the tab and leave.

  The clock in the Doo-doo informed me that it was 9:00 p.m. as I clambered in. Then an APB flashed across my brain. I’d completely forgotten about Vinnie and Marie — and more importantly, their dinners.

  I was in a hurry, so I caught every red light back, of course. When I finally arrived home, I walked into the front hall and was relieved to see light from the basement. In my panic I forgot I always left the basement lights on for Vinnie so he can find his litter box easily and not explore alternative venues. Like the rest of the house.

  I turned on the hall lights. Out came Vinnie, chastising me with, “Brrrllll! Gete!” for partying first and mommying second. He was right.

  I got out two cans of Finicky Fare and went into our supper time routine. “Okay, which do you want?” I asked, holding the cans out to him. “‘Sardines with Aspic Yick’ or ‘Gizzards in Goop’?” I asked. Vinnie pushed his face against the Sardines with Aspic Yick. “Aspic it is, sir,” I said. “Aspica to you, you spica to me. Har, har.” I know it’s weird but Vinnie thinks it’s punny.

  I emptied the can into Vinnie’s dish, fending him off while he stood up and pounded his front paws on the counter at me. If I come home some night to find him banging a fork and knife in each paw on the counter, it really won’t surprise me. I put the dish down in front of him and turned on the rest of the downstairs lights before I went upstairs to check on Marie.

  Marie greeted me by screaming, “Beee-yoooo!”

  “Hello to you too,” I said, patting her on the head and scratching behind her ears. After that I gave her fresh seeds and water. “I’ll come up for you in a bit and then you can watch TV downstairs.” I know it sounds simple but all Marie wants is to sit on my lap and watch a little TV– her one vice. She could have it. After I got Vinnie safely stashed behind closed doors, that is.

  I came back downstairs and turned on the TV and poured myself what was left of the cranberry juice. I contemplated the contents of my fridge and found a surprise dinner and note from Vito. I set the Tupperware dinner next to the microwave. Vinnie finished his dinner and did his after dinner fetish-washing as I microwaved my ungourmet feast of pirogues and ham. The microwave binged and I took my meal, such as it was, into the living room, turned on the local news and chewed.

  “Yet another fire has engulfed the new Buy-A-Lots store at Fruitville Pike,” the burly anchorman announced. “Police are not ruling out arson.”

  A commercial came on, and I thought about Howard and Myron and work and Monday. I couldn’t take more bad news, so I turned the TV off. I looked at my dinner. I couldn’t take any more bad tastes, either. I wandered into the kitchen, dumped the dinner and pawed through my cupboards. I found a bag of mini-marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate chips. I opened up a trusty recipe for s’more pie and improvised. While that was baking, I defrosted some frozen chicken breasts in the microwave, chopped an onion and set up a pot to make some Thai-like curry. My timer binged; I took out the s’more pie and set it on a baking rack on the counter to cool. Meanwhile, all the ingredients for the curry were in the stockpot and starting to simmer, so I opened the cupboard door to inspect my spices.

  That was when Vinnie decided to hop up on the counter and loop his tail around the glass bottle of hot sauce in the cupboard. It smashed with a clatter on the counter, splashing hot sauce across my face – and directly in both eyes. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I yelled. Blinded, I staggered toward the kitchen sink, tripping over Vinnie and stubbing my toe hard against the fridge. He hissed back at me, and I heard a loud plop. There was no point in looking: I couldn’t. I held my head under the kitchen faucet and rinsed my eyes and my face, as well as most of the counter and a lot of the floor.

  When I was able to open my eyes, I wished I hadn’t. My s’more pie lay upside down on the kitchen floor next to Vinnie, who was attempting to lick off the melted marshmallow goop on the back of his tail.

  I moved the stockpot off the heat and cleaned up what I could of the splattered hot sauce. Then I pulled some marshmallow gunk off of Vinnie.

  A couple of hours later, my kitchen was still dirty, Vinnie remained sticky, and I felt guilty. I was a closet late-night binge cooker. “You won’t tell anyone, will you, Vinnie?” I asked him. Vinnie thwacked his tail and sauntered off with a pot holder stuck to him, and I went upstairs to bed, resolving never again to cook alone.

  CHAPTER 2

  (Saturday)

  Well before my alarm went off, I woke with a throbbing foot and head, and the realization that I couldn’t see. “Don’t panic,” I told myself. “It’s probably left-over hot sauce.”

  I made it to the bathroom sink without tripping over Vinnie, and splashed water on my face. Then, carefully, I pried my eyelids apart. Eeech! My eyes were so bloodshot the whites of my eyes weren’t white anymore. They were completely red. And the hot sauce had also apparently made an equal impression on my face, too. My entire face looked like a giant sunburned blotch.

  Vinnie darted under the bed with a concerned, “Grrlll?” and watched me from his hiding spot. Apparently he didn’t recognize me, either.

  “C’mon,” I said, with a scratch of my fingers on the sheets. He emerged and hopped onto the bed for his snuggle. I petted him and discovered a wad of tissues glued to his tail. Well, at least he’d gotten rid of the potholder. Vinnie purred, stood up and put both his paws on top of my shoulders: his own special kitty hug. He started to clean my face with his sandpapery tongue, which would have been very sweet if it hadn’t felt a lot like being exfoliated by a Brillo pad.<
br />
  “Thanks, Vin. I love you too.”

  He stopped sanding my face and I headed to the shower. As I limped into the bathroom, I glanced in the mirror. Vinnie’s kisses had removed a layer of the blotch, and part of my face along with it. I looked like a sunburned baby’s bottom.

  When I finished, I got out and reached over Vinnie to grab a towel while he sat vigil on the bath mat. Vinnie doesn’t approve of showers – particularly the water I drip on him when I get out – and he muttered something that bordered on rude as I stepped out.

  I dragged a brush through my hair and tried to ignore my lobster face in the mirror. I put my hair up in a wet pony tail, threw on my favorite Barnstormers T-shirt and oldest jean shorts, and felt a lot more ready for the day and hash slinging. And some seriously high octane coffee. And jelly doughnuts. I sighed. I knew there were no jelly doughnuts in my Jackson Pollack a la Vinnie stained kitchen.

  I headed downstairs and deliberately averted my eyes from the myriad hot sauce splatters. Instead I headed straight to my new BFF, Mr. Coffee. I threw in some water and high-test coffee grounds and waited. Upstairs, Marie shrieked. I sighed. I trudged back upstairs, and gave her fresh seeds and water. I stroked her little pinhead and pulled out some of the ‘done’ casings from her new feathers coming in.

  “Sorry about missing your programs last night. There wasn’t much on, anyway,” I said.

  “Bee-you!” she replied cheerily. It doesn’t take much to make Marie happy.

  I trotted back downstairs to set out Vinnie’s bowl of Kitty Cookies. Then it was my turn: extra-strength coffee and Extra Strength Tylenol. It was 6:00 a.m. I slugged myself into the living room and watched the end of an old movie and started to feel better. I dozed. I know I dozed because the knocking at my front door woke me up.

  “Sorry to come by so early, Toots,” Vito apologized. “But I figured you were up because of the lights on and on account of the breakfast and all.”

  “Mrgmph,” I mumbled.

  “Anyways, would ya mind if I got my clean shirt box from yous now? I gotta couple of errands to make before breakfast,” he said. Pre-dawn dry cleaning? I was too tired to ask, but I’d remember to file it away for later.

  “Ummm… sure,” I said.

  “Thanks, Cookie,” he whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” I whispered back.

  “I figured Vinnie and Marie was asleep.”

  Oh. “No, they’re up and fed.”

  “Geez, you get up early on a weekend,” Vito said. “Umm… where’s the box, Mina?”

  “Backseat of the Doo-doo. Garage…” I mumbled, and lay back down on the sofa.

  I heard Vito trudge through the garage and collect his precious dry-cleaning shirt box. He came back into the foyer and I felt him watching me prone on the sofa.

  “Hey, smells like you got coffee brewing already?” he asked.

  “Yup. High-octane. Help yourself.” I gazed over at TV and closed my eyes again.

  “Thanks!” Vito smiled and waddled into the kitchen. Then he screamed, “HOLY GEEZ, WHO GOT WHACKED?”

  Oh. I guess I hadn’t really noticed the full effect of the attack of hot sauce a la Manson Family Mountain Lion. I felt Vito walk through the living room from behind closed eyes and heard him stop in the dining room. “And Holy Pirogues, what happened to the carpet?” he asked.

  “Hot sauce.”

  “Geez. You weren’t cooking alone, were you?”

  I shrugged. “Vinnie was here,” I said.

  Vito sighed. “You know, if you put salt on it right away, sometimes it takes the stain out. But now it’s dried. I could mix up some salt water and we could try spraying it on,” he said. He came into the living room and hovered over the sofa. “You want I should try?”

  I opened my eyes and stared at Vito staring at me.

  “Did you have a make-up malfunction or something, Toots?” he asked. I explained about the hot sauce eye wash. “Wow, are your blue eyes red. But they’re very patriotic looking and all. Hey, if you want, I can make your apologies to Evelyn?”

  Gosh. “Naw, it’s okay, I’ll manage,” I said. Besides, I figured if I didn’t cook for a couple hundred people soon, there was no telling what would happen if I cooked at home alone again.

  Vito puffed up. “Well if that’s the case, yous can’t drive like this. I’ll make some calls and do my runs after the Breakfast Wars.” He smiled at me conspiratorially. “Anything you want, kid? We got about a half hour. I can make a run?” he asked. I shook my head. “How about some jelly donuts?”

  That made me perk up. “Well, if you happen to have a spare jelly doughnut at home, I wouldn’t mind it,” I said.

  Vito grinned from ear to ear. “I don’t,” he said, “but I made a run for Abe Cooper just yesterday night. I’ll ask him.”

  “Vito – it’s not even six-thirty!!”

  “Hey, it’s okay. He has early golf games; he’s definitely up by now. Besides, I have a key,” Vito said. Vito had a key to Abe’s place too?

  “I’ll be right back!” he said, and huffed himself out the front door. And locked it for me, since he had his key and all. I sighed. My home life was confusing at best. Even if I did change the locks I bet that Vito would still find a spare somehow. Sometimes that made me worry about Vinnie, in case Vito let him out by accident. And our arrangement also had me wondering about my future sex life. That is, if I ever got one.

  Vinnie stuck his head out from under the sofa and nuzzled my hand. “Brllll???”

  “Yeah, he’s alright. He means well, anyway,” I said.

  The local TV woman began to broadcast the end of the world again, so I pushed up from the sofa and headed back into the kitchen. I was halfway done with my coffee when Vito let himself back in.

  “Ta da!” he sang. He pulled an enormous grin, and this time I noticed the spaces where his teeth ought to have been actually had, umm… teeth.

  “Huh?”

  “Jelly doughnuts! Raspberry, even!”

  I smiled. “Thanks, Vito.” He kept smiling so I kept looking closer. Besides, I’m nosey. “Gee, Vito, your smile seems a lot brighter today,” I lied.

  “Naw, it’s just there’s more of it,” he beamed. “I thought I lost my bridge, but I found it cleaning out the car yesterday.” He smiled a Game Show Host grin at me.

  “Oh, that’s great,” I said. “Thanks for the donut. I’m just gonna gulp this quick and then finish getting myself together.”

  “Sure, sure, sure, Toots!” He nodded and left, leaving me wishing I didn’t have an image in my mind of him – or anyone else – coming across a mouthful of dentures alongside Buddy Burger wrappers, tissues or other standard-issue car trash. Yechhhh.

  I bit into the jelly donut then washed it down with the super leaded coffee. “Grrlll???” Vinnie purred at me, rubbing his arched back just above my knee. He stuck to my shorts.

  It was a little before 7:00 a.m., so I figured I better go get Vito. As I headed toward the door, Vinnie chattered amiably from behind me.

  When I came out, Vito was waiting in a folding mesh porch chair, wearing mirrored sunglasses. “I figured you wanted your privacy,” he said. I shrugged, and we plodded down our attached lawns and got into his Lincoln Town car. The car smelled great – like Easter. I turned around and saw three large pans covered tightly with foil and remembered about the hams. “By the way, it was nice of you to leave me dinner last night,” I fibbed, determined to act Lancastrian.

  “Sure thing, Toots.”

  We drove off toward the Breakfast Wars.

  When we were on Duke Street, Vito banged his forehead on the steering wheel. “Stupido!” he muttered.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked politely. I didn’t really want to know, but I figured it was probably the Lancaster way to feign interest if someone bangs themselves upside the head on their steering wheel.

  “Nothin’, nothin’, nothin’, Toots,” Vito said automatic
ally.

  We pulled into an alley off of Duke Street that leads to the parking lot where lawyers pay a premium Monday through Friday, but parishioners and soldiers of the Breakfast Wars park for free on weekends. We got out of the car and I followed Vito, who was lugging his box o’ dry cleaning, to the kitchen entrance. Inside, I strained to see in the dark, following down the steps behind him. Compared to the 90-degree muggy air in the parking lot, the stairway down to the kitchen felt cool. But it was still pretty early. The afternoon promised temperatures of over 100 degrees and a humidity index over 90. The kitchen promised worse.

  Luckily when I entered, the kitchen – with only the oven going – was a balmy 102 degrees. And once I got the egg pans going, Hell would feel like a tropical paradise.

  Evelyn greeted us at the bottom of the stairs bearing her standard issue meat cleaver. Aunt Muriel stood behind her, furrowing her brow. “You’re a little late, dears,” Evelyn said. I mumbled an apology without looking at her. Then she turned her deathly gaze toward Vito. “I expected you a bit earlier.”

  “Hey, Evie, it’s not our fault,” Vito said. “Just look at Mina’s face and her eyes. And she stubbed her toe. She shouldn’t really even be here.”

  I stood flamingo-style and stared at them. Evelyn and Aunt Muriel peered at my pink face and red eyes. “Oh dear!” they both commented.

  “Well, put on some sunglasses!” Evelyn said, and Aunt Muriel handed me her pair of bling-studded shades. Vito and I looked at each other and shrugged. Typical Evelyn. She’d got the volunteer by the throat and she wasn’t letting go.

  I put on Aunt Muriel’s shades. Vito patted me on the shoulder, and I limped over to work with Ernie while Vito went to his usual station of utensil bundling. It was funny to think that a guy with such big pudgy hands could be so nimble fingered. But Vito made tucking plastic forks, knives and spoons in a napkin a form of Episcopalian Origami.

  “Here you go, kid,” Ernie said, holding out a spatula to me.

  Ernie’s about 73 years old and always calls dibs on the egg whipping. He cracks a couple dozen eggs or so, whips them up, then passes them to me. I throw the mess in a couple of pans to scramble. Once my batches are done, someone else schleps them over to the serving counter and throws them in chafing dishes. When the doors open at 9:00 a.m., people line up. The honest truth is for some people this will be their only decent meal – maybe their only meal – of the day. It makes my culinary crazies feel almost worthwhile.