David Schneider

A cheese platter ate my relationship.

For our first date, I took her to Mossant, one of those classy bistro joints, and fèted her on herb- and cognac-roasted chicken. She reciprocated by flooring it out to the suburbs and parking it at The Outback.

She was a good kisser, but clearly our tongues didn't intertwine. I resorted to desperate measures, and made reservations at Blackbird. "So, my dear, how do you like your foie gras `au torchon' above that toasted brioche resting in a caramelized quince puree with dashes of aged balsamic vinegar and sprigs of parsley?"

"Mmm."

Mmm. So it went through the kir royales and the rack of lamb, my solicitations for elicitations of culinary ecstasy growing to a silent bellow by the minute, all in vain. I was famished for excitement in a relationship gone stale, and consequently whipped up this bad hash of an idea that an `amuse bouche' would curry her favor.

The fizz had all gone out of our Champagne by the time I ordered the cheese platter. Blackbird's selection, we learned from founder Donnie Madia, was the consequence of an entire cheese program, in which a team of tasters dedicated themselves to the singular task of exotic cheese-food pairings.

"Won't you try some?"

"You know I don't like cheese."

It might have been cheesy, but I was frantic to skim the last slices of meat from this gristled relationship. In "Paradise Lost," I remembered, Adam and Eve sit down for a meal with the Archangel Raphael, who explains to the First Couple that both angels and men can equally experience Divine communion through good food. Yes, yes, I thought, and immediately slid the volume of Julia Child between the Bible and "The Joy of Sex."

Back at the Blackbird table, my eyes were rolling white in their sockets and my knees shuddering as a creamy Explorateur was zapped into the exploding starlight of pickled grapes, and an American mountain blue was warmed and mellowed by honey and walnuts. I wanted her to risk this unknowable, like choosing a position other than missionary. I lifted a bit of brie above the plate. "Please. Just for me. I promise you it's not your father's Kraft single slice."

She recoiled, souring. And at that moment, I realized I'd rather relish and ravish my dessert than the dish across the table. I closed my eyes in glowing masturbatory solitude.

The end came the next week, appropriately enough, at the World's Busiest Bennigan's. I'd had my fill. But I waxed philosophical over the curious culinary clash this city creates--Eastern sophistication, slamming like the Indian subcontinent into the hearty fare of the plains states, raising Loop skyscrapers like an American Himalayas. It was a lapse of taste, I shrugged, on both our parts. So I hopped on the Red Line, rolled out to the Prodigal Son Tavern, and let a tallboy of Pabst Blue Ribbon wash delicately past bits of deep-fried bacon.

And I thought, "Julia Child never thought of this."

(2003-08-05)

Also by David Schneider

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