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" I wouldn&amp;#039;t know how to greet you \u2014 like, what the hell would I do? I would have been drinking red wine. That&amp;#039;s what you drink when you&amp;#039;re cooking for a man \u2014 the Amarone I&amp;#039;ve been waiting to open, maybe. When men save bottles for some magic event that never happens, and one afternoon they die and the wine is as unused as their wife&amp;#039;s best plates, it breaks my heart. But this night would be the epitome of the reason you save a wine. I would definitely have steamers going, like the ones that arrived in the net at the Clam Broth House in Hoboken that great day you showed me how to unsheathe the tail. There&amp;#039;d be beer in the belly of the pot, the inside like every dark salty ocean you ever showed me, back when I didn&amp;#039;t know there would be a time I&amp;#039;d be nervous to see my father. You&amp;#039;ve been gone seven years. My hair is darker and this apartment has a cool kitchen. I still have your bottle of R\u00E9my Martin in the leaning bar that you didn&amp;#039;t build. When your friends came over that time and I wanted to impress them, I was going through recipes for squab in fennel oil and spotted skate and God I would have wrapped prawns in gold leaf if you would have let me, but you said chopped egg salad. And I wanted to die. Chopped egg salad, like we were at a deli. But you yelled and I relented. I boiled ten eggs and chopped them like I hated them, and I added mayonnaise and horseradish sauce and they ate the whole goddamn vat and loved it.  But tonight it&amp;#039;s my kitchen. Hanger steak in a cast-iron pan with sea salt and olive oil and spikes of deep-forest thyme. Potatoes, small red and blue ones, like the Fourth of July. The steak crackles in the oil in the pan. Three or four glasses of red wine and I realize you&amp;#039;ve never even seen me drunk, but I can&amp;#039;t do this any other way. I have no idea what you&amp;#039;ll look like and I&amp;#039;m scared of the sound of your voice and I&amp;#039;m scared the way I&amp;#039;m always both scared and happy when I dream of you.  I carry the steak off the heat and now the kitchen smells like cabins and coming home. I found a net for the steamers and a heavy porcelain cup for the broth and a butter warmer for the butter, and it&amp;#039;s all more professional than you&amp;#039;d appreciate, if you were here. But you can&amp;#039;t come, I know. Cooking for you, even though you&amp;#039;re not here to eat it, makes you earthly. I sit down at eight even though growing up, you and Mom had us sit down to eat at five or six, and she&amp;#039;d be drying her everyday dishes just as the movie families were mixing cocktails. And back then I begrudged those families the royalty of their murky martinis. But now I miss five and six. I use her best plates atop which the steamers yawn and the steak rests like a slow heart, but I slip your Amarone back into the leaning bar unopened, because when you save a bottle for the perfect night, that night doesn&amp;#039;t always come. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a8380/one-more-meal-lisa-taddeo-0910/>