I come from people who believe food is otherworldly. Miraculous, even. We are simple people who have built our religions partly around food.
Take Baptists. When you are ill, before anyone at church even says a prayer you get a casserole. When you have a baby, the first things you receive are baked goods. At your funeral, nobody will come unless Cousin Bentley makes deviled eggs.
So you can imagine how wonderful it was to wake up to the smell of food this morning. All kinds of food.
I rolled over in bed to check the clock. It was 6:03 a.m. and I could smell things baking. I stumbled out of the bedroom into a kitchen that was lit up like the Las Vegas Strip.
There was the hum of an electric oven, the sizzle of a skillet, the smell of vanilla, the overwhelming taste of melted butter, and the whir of a KitchenAid mixer.
My wife was preparing about 10,398 dishes at once. She is what you’d call a bipolar cook.
She cooks by frantic inspiration, sometimes standing near a stove for forty days without sleep.
When these bouts of inspiration hit, it is like watching a tropical storm in slow motion. Or a monster truck rally.
Mixing bowls sat on every shelf, each table, and on the top the fridge, loaded with cake batter.
I love cake batter. But I know from experience that I am not allowed to taste her cake batter with my finger. If at any time, my greasy digit desecrates her batter she will alter my anatomy with a pair of tongs.
“Mmmm,” I said. “Cake batter.”
And she answered me with a wild-eyed look often seen in “B” horror movies just before an unimportant supporting actor gets decapitated. She indicated she was about to reach for the tongs.
So I left the kitchen and watched from afar. My wife was cooking up a…