Meeting the Caterer
We had the utmost good fortune on Friday to visit with a particular kind of priestess and her wonderful husband, who hosted a very fine meal, just for us. When we walked up, after having taken a road we've never ventured far on, and then some dirt roads, she was at the grill, turning a beautiful hunk of meat, and vegetables, and immediately offering us a drink concoction she had invented. The sun was beginning to set, and we were out in the desert, holding champagne flutes with a delicious elixir, having, almost immediately, the most interesting conversations with the caterer and her husband (who are, as I imagine most caterers are, much more than caterers, but I don't think you usually get into conversations like this with most people right away).
So many conversation threads were picked up, unwound, and then we also spoke of food, and ideas for our wedding, of course. The grilled shrimp, sweet onion tartlets, and chips with homemade salsa were making me high. The bacon-wrapped figs were becoming dangerously addictive. The elixir kept flowing. We switched to red wine when we sat down at the table, to a feast of grilled vegetable salad (pomegranate seeds peeking out underneath ribs of lettuce, the lovely grilled taste on the asparagus and zucchini), juicy tri-tip marinated perfectly, chicken, and grilled polenta. I hesitate to even give more specifics, since everything seemed so singular, and unique, and after all, some of these will in all likelihood appear at our wedding next year...
Can I marry you? she exclaimed from across the table, during another fantastic conversation in which we discovered more crossover, overlap, interesting asterisked moments in our lives that we felt comfortable discussing. They were an amazing couple, and when we left three hours after we had arrived, S. and I felt a sense of the supernatural, gliding along in the absolute darkness of the desert road with no lights on it, utterly in awe of what we'd witnessed--the food being one of the many things--and a renewed sense of what we want to create for ourselves, as a couple and as individuals, in our own lives. I don't think this is the usual experience people have when 'interviewing' caterers for weddings, but I'm done being surprised, since my experiences tend to be on the more unusual side anyway. And for this, I am grateful.
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