“Fork the Fire” to Help Heidi’s, Blackbird

Each Friday, the Heavy Table presents a new installment of Knife Skills, a culinary novel presented piece by piece as it’s written. If you’re uncomfortable with salty language, please be aware that characters regularly use words and phrases unacceptable in polite conversation. In the author’s imagination, some members of the food service industry have a tendency to swear. For previous and subsequent installments, visit the Heavy Table’s Fiction directory.

Back in New Amsterdam, Robertson cleaned his apartment. It took 48 hours, with breaks for sleep, take-out Chinese food, alcohol, and a consultation with On Food and Cooking about the gyokuro tea sent to him as a gift by Lastri. The goal was to figure out why he should care about the gift. “Huh,” he grunted. The Japanese green tea was made from shoots covered by bamboo boxes and almost completely shaded in the two weeks before harvest, leading to violet notes of flavor.

He tried it one-to-one against Lipton with milk and sugar, and preferred the Lipton. He threw the metal tin into the trash. He walked away, purposefully. He walked back to the trash. He took the tin back out of the trash and put it on the counter. He turned around, turned around again to face it, scowled at it, and threw it back into the trash. Moments passed. He paced the room. He withdrew the tin from the trash again, rooted around in his food cabinet and buried it near the back. He sat down, and looked at his apartment. Clean. Books organized. Counters empty.

“Damn,” he said quietly. He hadn’t worked for months, and hadn’t needed to — his expenses were low (by New Amsterdam standards), his bank account relatively full of money laying dormant, lazily stretching out and filling up zeroes.

The phone rang — the ringtone was “Uncomplicated,” by Elvis Costello. Lastri — one of maybe five people to rate their own ring. She was, no doubt, following up on her gift. Or something.
Continue reading Knife Skills, A Serial Novel – Part 39 »