A TOAST

 

"Wine" from a neighbor-grown tree of blood oranges its peak now and sold honor system at his fruit stand in front; and tea-soaked butterfly pea flowers floating in the apéritif from a food-grower friend next block over with delicious edible bouquets on his Sundays market. The celebration: a memorial anniversary. An old friend came to the island to join me at church, it's a yearly coast-to-coast tradition, but this time we were together for the offertory mass and prayer remembrance with white Tahitian gardenias placed at the altar. And before heading out, we started off with a toast: "But thy eternal summer shall not fade,/Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;/Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,/When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st" (Sonnet 18, Shakespeare). With grace-filled voice she's always assured me life goes on and all is well. 

Her stay was only for a couple of days and we didn't waste time and got busy afterwards fixing up my new home. We got two great bookcases at the used store and she said the other was begging to be painted and I agreed, and we chose green as color for it the kind when you cut open an avocado and see its flesh, that color, and bought that paint. I feed my friends well when they visit (most are omnivores but they delight with my plant-based nutrition when around). I had steamed baby collards in a cut-in-half sweet dumpling squash call it greens bowl - can you imagine how I did that? O.K., I will tell you, intrepid cook: the morning of her arrival I was tenderizing garbanzo beans in a slow simmer halfway up the pot and there was room for my raw cross-sectioned squash to join in the cooking face down, the idea is to marry their flavors together in the process of convection, and once the squash was cooked through I scraped the pumpkin purée out seeds and all (in fact I was eating the delectable seeds as I was transferring, nothing short of fabulous), and voila! shell of the squash bowl sculpted, I then stuffed the greens in it and plunked gently back in the simmering pot face down again to cook the collards. When done, turn upside down with two long wooden spoons, take a towel and hold on either side, nest the shell in a real bowl and serve your food with ivory chopsticks.

The night that will be her eve before returning to the mainland we dined at Mala in Lahaina and sat at the bar next to the sea. We talked to catch up as deep as we can about our lives now, and food was accessory turning time slow. We toasted again for the last time - and the good server made that memory permanent now on our separate phones.