The perfect meal

Cooking the perfect meal is such a big challenge. First, because perfection does not exist in our human world ; second, because high expectations always lead to disappointment.

For this reason, I expected to be disappointed of my perfect meal. Oddly enough, I wasn't.

My first demand was to cook for my significant other and no one else. This was our last dinner together before my return to France so I did not care about the food; I just wanted the moment to be unforgettable.

For this special occasion, I wanted to plan and prepare the dinner in duet: nothing should have been made without our 4 hands touching it. The initial menu, which we eventually did not follow, was :

• a 'tomato tornado', the speciality of my boyfriend: a tomato soup/stew enlivened with chopped vegetables and spices
• toasts of home made pesto and sardines
• roasted scallops with a white wine sauce
• a purée of potatoes and celery
• steamed leeks
• fava beans
• asparagus
• tiramisu
• wine

Of course, this was a too ambitious menu, especially if you don't have a car to go to the supermarket. The afternoon before our dinner, nothing was ready and my lover was at work. I had to revise downwards the menu and dropped the soup (I did not know how to prepare it), the toasts (the pesto would have taken too long to be made), the purée (the day was too hot to eat warm starches) and the tiramisu (I made one the day before for a family dinner.)

Driven by my boyfriend's roommate to Whole Foods, I carefully chose most of the produces I wanted. To have my cart full of fruits and vegetables made me feel healthy and satisfied.

I decided, seduced by the fresh figs and the fennel, to change even more my plans: instead of the asparagus and the fava, I would reuse Katherine's recipe to make a fennel-apple-raisin salad. I added pecans and improvised completely for the sauce (olive oil, lemon juice, maple syrup.) Nothing was more pleasant for me than improvisation.

As for the dessert, I wanted something efficient: good and simple. The figs, roasted with butter, on a scoop of vanilla ice cream would be a great deal. Sold !

Back home, I started the marinade for the scallops: garlic, fennel, salt, pepper, olive oil and white wine. I also prepared beforehand the steamed leeks, cut in little squares, and chopped the vegetables and fruits for the salad. And that was it. Barely more than half an hour. I would have to do later the dessert and the white wine sauce with the scallops.

This was actually my biggest fear: the main course of the meal was something I never cooked before. The scallop is a very delicate see food and with a bit too much heat, it turns chewy and bland. Moreover, wine sauces are easy to fail and I never saw anyone make it, neither in front of me nor at TV. I just knew that it exists and that it is something big in French food culture.

After getting ready myself, it was time to open the bottle of wine and wait for my guest, who was charged to buy lemon and cream. I could not find the bottle opener and the cream has been forgotten. After finding back the former, drinking a glass of wine and smoking a cigaret, my boyfriend left to go to the supermarket: the cream was essential for our dinner and could not be avoided. I made the sauce for the salad, turned on the oven for the scallops and started the wine sauce, with vinegar and white wine in a pan. 30 minutes later, my guest arrived, sweating and annoyed: after going to 3 different stores (the 2 first were closed), my significant other finally found the cream. Plus a baguette, some cheese and a tomato as an appetizer. He gave me bites of toasts while I was cooking: nothing could have been more encouraging.

I continued my sauce. While following the steps on the first online recipe I found, I was puzzled to learn that the sauce required 170g of butter (6oz, if my conversion is right). It was absolutely out of question to do that: sickness guarantied. So I added a certain amount of fat until I decided it was already really too much. I tasted: it was actually good. No secret but the butter... Without keeping an eye on the watch, I put the scallops in the oven and put them out around 5 minutes later, when the table was set. We filled our plates with a bit of everything: the leeks -still warm- and the scallops (5 each) topped by the wine sauce and the salad. The dinner was ready.

The first bite of scallop was amazing: it was PERFECTLY cooked, their flesh being savory and delicate. In spite of my nonchalance and taste for improvisation, I could not have made them better. And even if I wanted, I would not know how: this culinary success was a pure random.

The association with the sauce was very fortunate as well, the leeks were melting in the mouth and the salad, refreshing and just acid enough to balance the butter in the sauce.

“Marie, this dinner is perfect” did I hear several times. But it was not over yet and the dessert, while not very risky (everybody likes ice cream), could still ruin the dinner. After washing together the dishes, I peeled the figs, made the butter (again!) melt in the pan and threw the fruits in it. At that point, I was already tipsy and did not care any more about being a careful cook: this was just messy. But delicious. Even though the maple syrup I added in the pan was not necessary, the dessert was up to the rest of the meal.

However, this dinner, as perfect as it was for us, was only the trigger of a much more perfect evening spent together, driving in the deserted streets of Detroit, stopping eventually at the place of our first kiss. Then, I realized something: food is not an end in itself, it opens up to much more. I would say so about travel and in particular about my stay in America: it is not the end, it is only the beginning.