He talked to himself-- worryingly reminding his son of his eighth grade English teacher, known for his coffee breath, his stench of dried mango, his terrible skin, and his occasional fishing for earwax with a number two pencil. He recited his recipe under his breath. He wasn’t a cook, but was desperately trying to become one-- and right now he was in the early stages. Like a bird confidently flying out of the nest, only to land head first onto the concrete stairwell, and later to be brushed up with a dust pan, and eventually lying in the compost upon banana skins and thick oatmeal.
His kids were kind of dicks about the whole thing. They’d complain about how he only made one pasta, and how it wasn’t even good. So, in an effort to dodge the surprisingly effective criticizing-- he’d buy a potpie or something from the supermarket. But today, he was trying something new. Today he was going to let them choose the dinner, and let them judge it. He was only given forty-five minutes to complete the whole thing. Like the snobs they were, they gave him something hard-- because they knew he wasn’t going to be able to do it. They had picked something Indian-- chickpea or something. Of course, their father didn’t have anything ready-- so he went to an Indian food store and was preparing, mentally, the whole day. The recipe included the following ingredients:
¼ cup grown aniseed
½ cup black cardamom
cup rice milk
¼ cup cumin
four anchovies (preserved in olive oil)
four bunches of fenugreek leaf
It was now a quarter to six, and they usually had dinner around seven, so he anxiously waited in the kitchen. At six, on the dot, he sprang up with such force he nearly hit is forehead on the orange peel ceiling. He grabbed a medium bowl and added in the appropriate amount of salt, and then lemon, and then way too much paprika because the top was really loose. Half an hour in, the burner was on, the oven cooking traditional Naan, the microwave was sizzling butter, and he was roasting a couple coffee beans. It was at this time he decided it convenient to plug in his charging device-- to rescue his phone, which now ran at eight percent, and was probably sucking the last bit of energy from the creases of the battery-- like a child with a smoothie.
With an almost inevitable crack, the burner stopped, the Naan sat unheated, the butter ceased to melt, and the coffee beans lay in their unroasted state. In a minute of panic, he grabbed a lighter, and almost burned down the house roasting the Naan. At six forty-five, the kids sat on the wooden benches, and gripped their steal silverware between their knuckles. Out of the smoking kitchen came a sweaty man, carrying a silver plate of multicolored foods. He felt like he was coming home from the war, and that those forty-five minutes had been a years worth of squatting in the muck filled trenches, while bombs cascaded over their heads.
The children tasted the dish, and chewed it between their cheeks. And then they wrapped it around their teeth like a blanket, and kept it on their tongue for duration of seven minutes. Then they turned their heads ninety degrees, and then back to center. All the while, their father sat confused, moving his food from one side to the other, and occasionally taking a bite or two. One child opened their mouth and then closed it again. Then the other did the same. And finally, they spoke.
“It’s ok, but it’s pretty good. Not as good as mom’s though.”