SquidgeWorld Archive

A Feast for Shabbat —

On Friday afternoon, Charlie’s eyes widened as Will and Don carried a ton of covered dishes and cooking supplies into the house. Charlie was roped into helping and soon Will had completely taken over Charlie’s kitchen. Charlie vaguely offered to help but was relieved when Will waved him off.

Don smiled at Charlie and murmured in his ear, “He’s having a great time. Discovering a whole new cuisine and preparing to wow you all.”

“Okay,” Charlie whispered back. “I’ll be wowed, I promise.”

Don winked at him and turned to get the last load from the car and then head back to work. Charlie escaped the kitchen and went to find out what Nena was doing.

Several hours later, Charlie heard the call for dinner. He looked up from the watercolors he’d been painting with to find that Nena had gotten tired of painting and was now watching TV with Alan. Charlie realized he’d probably gotten a little wrapped up in altering the spectral power distribution of the paint by the application of more water or pigment.

Nena got up from the TV and came to inspect Charlie’s work. “Whuz that?”

“Nothing in particular, I was just studying the spectral emittance of the source in comparison to the radiant flux of the source.”

“Hmm,” Nena said, examining the soggy paper in front of Charlie. “Looks like Koota after he’z roll’d in Mz. Sings fower garden.”

Charlie blinked and looked at his painting. “Yeah, it kinda does.” He adjusted his focus from the physics of the process and could see the back of a muddy dog covered with bits of destroyed plants. He grinned at Nena. “I don’t think I’ll show this to Mrs. Singh. She sees it too often for real.”

Nena nodded in agreement and took Charlie’s hand. “Dinnurr! I’s been smelling it all day!”

“Not all day, since Will has only been here since—”

Nena ignored the correction and pulled Charlie towards the bathroom to wash up. Now that Charlie was paying attention, he realized the house was filled with smells of fresh-baked bread and other delicious aromas. Most he couldn’t place, but they tugged at his memory, making him feel young … and miss his mother. Would she have liked Will? And … Colby? Charlie was afraid to even think the question, considering what his father had said about Colby just a few weeks before. A man of violence? My Colby? Couldn’t his father see that Colby was the gentlest man Charlie knew, except for his father himself?

Charlie cleaned himself from the painting and then had to track down his suit coat. He finally found it in the garage, covered, once again, in chalk dust. When he’d cleaned it up and gotten back into the house, he saw that Don and Colby had arrived from the office. Don had taken a shower and was buttoning up a fresh shirt. Charlie gave Colby a quick welcome home kiss and went to find his tie.

Charlie discovered that his father had set the dining table again with the best silver and china and a new white tablecloth. The kiddish cup was ready, as was the covered challah.

Charlie stuck his head into the kitchen to see more food than he thought possible. “Wow,” he said sincerely to Will. “What all did you make?”

Will smiled widely and waved him away. “You’ll find out. Go, sit!”

Nena lit the candles, handling the prayer with more confidence this time, then everyone sat down, unconsciously taking their same seats as they did for Rosh Hashanah. Alan said kiddish and they shared the grape juice cup around. Then everyone washed their hands and Alan said the blessing on the challah. This time they dipped their challah in salt, but it was still very good. Colby complimented Will on his successful first time making challah and Will and Don shared a secret grin.

Nena looked a little uncertain about going ahead and eating, but Alan reassured her that they could eat as the food came out. Charlie was privately relieved that he didn’t have to ask.

The first dish that Will brought out had them all applauding at the sight. It was a whole fish, a massive salmon complete with head and tail, topped with slices of lemon, lime and star fruit. As Will cut a piece and offered it to Alan, Charlie saw that it was stuffed with something white.

Will served everyone else then sat down and waited for their verdicts. Their appreciation was quick and fervent, even Nena seemed to like it, and Alan asked what the dish was.

“Stuffed Salmon A La Sea-Breeze,” Will responded with a smile.

“You wouldn’t believe how many steps this thing has!” Don groaned. “First, he made the gefilte fish paste out of …”

“Whitefish, pike, onions, matzo, eggs, spices,” Will supplied.

“Then I have to go to the deli and get salmon and tell them to cut it ‘like a book.’ Luckily, the guy knew what I meant. So, I bring back this huge fish and Will seasons it and makes this marinade out of …”

“Mostly garlic and cilantro,” Will said.

“Then it marinates overnight and then he stuffs it with the gefilte fish then he makes this sauce with vegetables and puts it over it and cooks it.” Don gave a dramatic sigh. “After cooking, he dressed it with all these things. Made me tired just watching him.”

Will chuckled. “So sorry to wear you out.”

Charlie smiled to himself, loving how easily Will could bring out Don’s playful side. During Don’s darkest times in the FBI, Charlie had wondered if Don had lost that side completely. He’d been glad to learn that it had just been buried, waiting for the right person to unearth it.

“And what else do we have?” Alan asked and Charlie realized that Will had brought out two other dishes while he’d been distracted with the fish.

“This,” Will said, pointing to a bowl containing a thick, light brown sauce, “is baba ghanoush.”

“Baba-what?” Colby laughed.

“Baba ghanoush,” Will said. “It’s pureed eggplant and garlic. You dip challah into it.”

“Babaganoosh,” Charlie repeated then got into it, “Babaganoosh, babaganoosh, babaganoosh …”

Nena picked up the chorus and soon they were both chanting and tapping their knives and forks on their plate.

“Okay, okay,” Will laughed. “Would you prefer I called it ‘aubergine salad?’”

“No, I like babaganoosh,” Charlie grinned.

“Me, too!” Nena cheered.

“How about you taste it, too?” Will teased.

While the baba ghanoush was getting passed around, Will said, “This other one is fried eggplant with a garlic-cilantro-ketchup sauce.”

Charlie took a small portion of the second eggplant dish and poked it dubiously. Nena took a bite of hers and Charlie was embarrassed into trying it himself. His eyebrows rose and he ate the rest and got more. He also dipped his bread into the baba ghanoush and was surprised there, too. He didn’t usually like eggplant, but these dishes didn’t have the bitter taste and seedy texture he expected from eggplant. He thought about complimenting Will on them, but decided to save his compliments until later, when he could put them all together. Will had a big enough head as it was.

When everyone had enjoyed some fish, Will cleared it off and brought out a bottle of Chardonnay from a California winery that Charlie had never heard of and poured each of the adults a glass. He filled Nena’s goblet with white grape juice so she wouldn’t feel left out. He then placed bowls at everyone’s place and brought out the next course, a chicken soup.

It wasn’t a chunky soup, like the chicken soup that Charlie was used to, it was a clear broth with some slivers of carrots and croutons floating on top. He took a careful sip of the hot broth and once again he was seven-years-old and sick with the chicken pox.

He’d been almost eight, and in the midst of some extremely interesting math with a new tutor, when one of the neighbor kids had infected him. He’d cried with frustration at not being able to see the tutor or go outside or see Don. Don had been sent to stay with a friend so he wouldn’t get sick, too. Grandma Mann had come over to be with him when his mom and dad needed to go to work. She’d read him stories, listened to him talk about math, and made him lots of chicken soup, exactly like this. She’d made him wear gloves so he wouldn’t scratch, but also let him watch TV until his head hurt, and had given him several oatmeal baths a day. That was the most time he’d ever had Grandma Mann all to himself and he’d treasured it, at least in retrospect. A seven-year-old expects his grandmother to live forever.

“It’s like my grandma’s,” Charlie said to Colby.

“My grandma had a special chicken soup recipe, too,” Colby smiled.

“Next time I get sick,” Don said to Will. “I want some of this. I think it would cure cancer.”

Will laughed. “Nobel Prize, here I come.”

While they ate their soup, Don and Will asked Nena questions about school.

Charlie snorted at the look of horror on Colby’s face when Nena started talking about a boy she thought was cute. Just wait until her first boyfriend, he thought, then chuckled to himself. Oh, I pity the boy …

After the soup, Will cleared the soup bowls – firmly refusing help – and brought out the main course. The first plate had stuffed chicken quarters, decorated with a sprig of green leaves, probably some herb.

“Marinated chicken, stuffed with kishka,” Will announced.

“Looks wonderful,” Alan said.

“What’s kishka?” Colby asked.

Will answered as he went back into the kitchen, “Not too far off from regular Thanksgiving stuffing –you know, carrots, onions, celery— just with flour instead of bread, plus paprika.”

He returned with a large rectangular pan with a steaming golden-brown dish inside. Then he retrieved another, similar-looking dish. “This is potato kugel, or potato-egg casserole, and broccoli and cauliflower kugel.”

There was a busy passing about of plates and serving dishes. Charlie put a large spoonful of each on his plate. Both of the kugels were rich and delicious. The sauce on the chicken was unexpectedly flavorful, with garlic, onions, tomatoes and some spice he couldn’t identify.

“What’s in …?” Charlie asked Will around a mouthful.

“Cumin and basil,” Will said. He was smiling and watching everyone eat, almost basking in the appreciative sounds and faces, as if he’d never heard praise before.

Charlie ate his chicken and watched Will out of the corner of his eye. He’d gotten a sudden and quite unpleasant realization of what Will’s childhood must have been like. At first glance, Will Stevens was indeed ‘scary as Hell,’ as his father had put it, but every so often, Charlie would see behind that part of Will to the extremely uncertain man underneath. Charlie knew there were a lot of wonderful things in his life he took for granted, and one of them was the love of his family. It was good to be reminded every so often of how lucky he was.

Charlie changed his mind about saving up his compliments and said, “It’s all really good.”

Will beamed and said, “Save room for dessert.”

Charlie had a hard time saving that room, but he managed. He knew that Will would come up with something spectacular for dessert.

When everyone finally slowed down, Will got up and cleared the table, once again refusing help. After the plates, he took away the wine glasses. He brought clean ones out and filled them with a dark Zinfandel from the same vineyard as the earlier white. Nena got cranberry-grape juice. Will put the wine bottle away and brought out a serving platter heaped with small rolls that looked familiar to Charlie.

“Rugelach,” Will said. “It’s a lot like little cinnamon nut rolls.”

“We had these at Christmas,” Don said, and Charlie nodded in recognition.

“Margaret’s mother used to send us a tin,” Alan nodded. “Now there was a lady who knew how to bake.”

“Oh, yeah,” Charlie agreed. “I loved her apricot rugelach.”

“I’ll have to try that,” Will said thoughtfully.

“Mmm,” Don said around a mouthful of crumbs. “’erfect!”

Will returned to the kitchen and brought back a glass serving platter with an elegant chocolate cake on it. The cake was solid-looking and sitting in a bed of dark red sauce. Will had drizzled more sauce in graceful Hebrew letters on the top, and placed red raspberries around the top edge of the cake and around the base.

“Chocolate torte with raspberry coulis,” Will said, setting the cake down. “I hope there’s nothing against raspberries or sauce. The torte just seemed to need something.”

Alan shook his head and Will visibly relaxed. He brought out a gravy boat filled with more raspberry sauce and began cutting up the cake.

“What does it say?” Colby asked.

“‘Shabbat shalom’ or Sabbath greetings.”

Charlie savored his first bite of cake. The dark chocolate cake – torte, Will called it – was dense, rich, and utterly decadent. It might have been too bitter for Charlie, if it weren’t for the sweet raspberry sauce. How would you know that a dish ‘needed something’? Charlie shrugged, consigning it to the large category of ‘things that he didn’t need to understand’ and took another bite of cake.

Lots of good food and conversation later, Alan leaned back from the table and patted his stomach. “With leftovers from this and Rosh Hashanah, we won’t need to cook until after Yom Kippur.”

“There’s cholent waiting for lunch tomorrow,” Will said. “That’s slow-cooked beef stew,” he added to the rest of them.

“Wow,” Alan said. “You’ve got it all covered!”

“The man knows how to run an op,” Don grinned and Will laughed.

Charlie, Colby and Nena added their appreciation for Will’s meal, which he graciously accepted, and then talk turned to what they were going to do after supper. It was generally agreed that a walk would be good after this feast. With that decision made, Charlie reached for another rugelach.

Much later that evening, Charlie lay in bed, his stomach returned back to its normal shape from being an overstuffed balloon. He propped himself up on an elbow to look at Colby. His big, blond lover was lying on his side with his back to him. His green eyes were closed but Charlie could tell that he was still awake.

Charlie moved closer, kissing Colby’s neck. Colby’s eyes opened and his lips curved into a smile.

“Do you know something?” Charlie murmured.

“Hmm?”

“There’s a Jewish mitzvah or commandment that says you’re supposed to have sex on Friday night.”

“No way,” Colby protested.

“There is,” Charlie said with a grin. “It’s in the Torah, I swear.”

Colby chuckled. “Of all the laws, you decide we need to follow this one?”

“Definitely,” Charlie said, and got up to lock the bedroom door.

Many thanks to A Taste of Shabbos by Rebbetzin Esther Winner and Helen Zegerman Schwimmer.