Simple Recipe

“It’s a simple recipe my sweet dear,” she smiled as she said it. “You only need two lambs' hearts; they’re the easiest to work with, and then something to stuff them with.” A naughty gleam cast across her eyes.
I sat at the end of the kitchen’s island counter watching as her deft fingers opened up the largest aperture of one small heart and began stuffing it with chopped andouille sausage, portofino mushrooms, shallots and peppers, and her own special mix of sour dough bread crumbs with seasoned herbs from the garden. She pushed the stuffing mix well down into the heart, filling it to the brim. Once done, she turned her attention to the other one.
“Here, you have a try.” She pushed the other lamb’s heart towards me.
I looked at the organ with hesitation and a little distaste then said. “I’ve never stuffed hearts before, perhaps you better do it.”
“You’ll never learn if you don’t practice,” she said gently, “hands on experience is always better than merely watching, as you well know.” there was that naughty smile again.
We met some time ago at a prestigious culinary training academy. Me a struggling freshman and her at the very top of the school’s graduating class. She since moved on to greater things; the Executive Chef for an international pharmaceutical firm so vast it sported it’s own gourmet kitchen, catering vast epicurean banquets and supplying it’s modest fleet of first class business jets that provide corporate dignitaries as well as privileged customers with quality meal service. I continued my education as a novice chef’s apprentice in a popular Hotel in Orange County. It has been a struggle; my superiors have informed me on more than one occasion that I have not displayed the proper fervent temperament for controlling a busy five star kitchen, judging my actions to be less than dynamic in the heat of rush hour business. I prefer to present myself cool and calm rather than loud and aggressive under those conditions. Apparently they feel there is yet time for me to learn to adapt my behavioral presence in the workplace, as my tutelage continues.
She came back very suddenly into my life just last week as a consultant on a large collective function at our Hotel for the International Gastronomic Society. I don’t know why I accepted her advances once again, she was a passionate woman but far too self-absorbed to be bothered with a real relationship. Nonetheless she was attractive, knowledgeable and I fell once more for the “Come up to my place and I’ll show you thing or two about cooking…” line. Again. Sigh.
I slid off the wooden four-legged counter stool and walked around to where the heart lay on the reddish brown and blond checkered pattern of a hard maple end-grain cutting board, like some miniature upside-down mountain. Tentatively I took hold of it, the smoothness intrigued me. I’d never reached out and touched a heart before; don’t read too much into that. It felt firm to the touch and for an instant I had a vision of a living muscle pumping essential lifeblood within the small creature it came from. No more will this little lamb skip and cavort in the field with others of its kind. Grasping the widest part I began shoving the stuffing mix into the organ, remembering how she’d pushed it right down into the inner depths.
She smiled that slow smile of hers and spoke “That’s right, pack it in, deeper.” And again innuendo flew across the room as she approached from behind to wrap her arms around me and guide my hands.
Once we were finished and our hearts lay naked on the table as it were, stuffed and ready to be placed in the oven, she suggested we share a bottle of wine. “Great idea,” I thought, “she knows cooking always makes me want to whet my palate with a drop of wine.” She also knows from experience that wine loosens my inhibitions as well I reflected.
She had her back angled toward me at the kitchen sink scrubbing the blood from the cutting board. “Zip down to the cellar and fetch us a bottle of that Cabernet Sauvignon, it goes so well with red meats.” She directed.
I did her bidding and opened the creaking door to the cellar. Switching the light on at the top of the narrow staircase, I made my way down into the cool, damp interior. The light barely touched the austere room below and gave the faintest hint of illumination, just enough to see the array of bottles stacked neatly on their sides in the large wine rack located in the furthest corner of the room. I made my way over and began searching for the Cabernet.
Just then I noticed the tarpaulin in the opposite corner. The dismal glow of light shadowed its true color and from where I stood it merely looked to be a dark lumpish mound. “Strange, that seems kind of out of place even for a basement.” I thought. There was something odd about the shrouded mound, something compelling and I just had to take a peek. I reached over to lift the heavy sailcloth tarp.
Her soft voice sounded from the kitchen “Told you lambs’ hearts are easiest. Of course you can use mature hearts but they’re far tougher.” I jumped as if something had run across my soul. I don’t know if it was something in her voice or the thought of being caught snooping around that startled me so, but I turned and grabbed the nearest bottle and ran up the stairs like a guilty kid almost caught sneaking a peek at Dads secret magazine collection in the basement.
She was placing the hearts in the oven as I came back into the kitchen. My face was flush and my blood was racing. Either I was out of shape, or the fright I took in that cellar was far more serious than I realized. How silly of me to jump at voices merely because I was deeper below the earth’s surface than most buried bodies, I have always had a fear of confined spaces and being below ground in a small cellar was not very comfortable for me at all.
“That isn’t the red Cabernet, I think Merlot is a bit too sweet for this dish, be a dear and run back down and get the right wine will you?” she chided me.
I obediently turned and dragged my feet back down the stairs step by step into that tight cubicle that was the cellar. Not even a window near the ceiling offered any break to the contour of concrete surrounding the cement bunker. As I studied the bottles earnestly seeking the elusive Cabernet, my eyes kept wandering over to the tarp-covered mass in the corner. I stopped and turned to the protuberance and stepped closer to it, the details still blurred by the dim lighting of a single dingy bulb suspended from the crypt ceiling above the stairs. The dark pile still had an awful familiarity to the vague shapes and shadows that just didn’t quite register. It was an idea on the tip of my tongue but stuck there refusing to go any further like a bad taste. I stood perfectly silent for god knows how long unmoving, unformed questions lurking in my sluggish mind. Just as I regained my composure and once again moved towards the covered mass, a hand from behind descended onto my shoulder.
“Did you decide to camp down here or what?” she whispered. “Oh there’s the Cabernet. Come on up silly, dinner is ready.”
I tucked my body back into my skin, fell in line and marched up the begrudging stairs as quickly as my trembling feet would take me. She showed me to my seat at the dining room table set elegantly to perfection, and opened the bottle of Cabernet.
“It’s a shame this bottle won’t have time to breathe, but it is important to eat this dish while hot. You know very well that enjoying a fine meal is just as important as preparing the dish itself. Creating a meal is just the foreplay.” Again with the gleaming eyes that made me wonder if I was part of the menu.
I looked down at my plate, and there was our gourmet repast, roasted stuffed heart snuggled in a deathbed of wild rice, garnished with a braised blood tomato-crown topped with seared Red Leicester and Parmesan cheese and accompanied by fresh asparagus spears prepared amid sliced water chestnuts and strips of sweet red onion and tortured with fresh squeezed lemon juice.
I smiled my approval and took a sip of the freshly poured glass of wine then sputtered and choked at the foul vinegary musk offered by the soured wine. She raised her glass and lightly sniffed at the wines imperfect bouquet.
“Oh my,” she spoke sadly “and it was such a good year…please be a dear and fetch us another bottle, but make haste my sweet lest you lose the subtle reward of this meal.”
I excused myself and ran back to the basement, down the dim lit stairs and straight to the wine rack, remembering where she located the last Cabernet. I snatched up another bottle and quickly made my way to the stairs, then stopped. Was something leaking from under the worn tarp? Did something break? Was it my fault? I was certain I never got close enough to the lump on the floor to do any damage, but to be sure, I walked over and lifted the corner of the canvas.
I never heard the bottle of wine fall crashing to the cement floor. Underneath the stained tarp were two small children with gaping holes in their chests where their hearts had once been pumping essential lifeblood within their small bodies. No more will they play and cavort in fields with others of their kind….
“Ah, the dear lambs. Tomorrow night I’ll teach you how to make Simmered Kid with almonds and saffron…” came the dark sultry voice from behind me.