“Salmon. Again. You know, I thought moving here would be a ball. Eating fresh caught fish whenever I wanted. A goddamn ball. But you know, I really just can’t take this anymore.”
Madeline is never happy. At least about food.
“Salmon does not go with eggs. It should not be on my toast. I don’t care how much salt you cooked it on, I want some goddamn ketchup on some properly scrambled eggs.”
In Florida, she complained about having oranges or orange juice all the time.
“Where’s that waiter? What was his name, George or something? Frank? I want to file a complaint about the food. This is supposed to be a high-end resort. The President visited here.”
When a cruise took us past Mexico, she decided that her palette just could not take peppers.
“There should be some goddamn variety!”
In fact, the only time Madeline was ever completely, utterly, perfectly satisfied with her food was a single solitary moment when, I, her dearest most beloved husband (who, I might add, is on his third plate of this most delicious salt-baked salmon), took ill in Georgia, and she ate what she claims was “the most perfectest bowl of grits she had evah had the pleasure of eating.” I did not get any, despite the fact that they had been meant for the patient.
Yuck, grits.
ReplyDeleteI really like how we get a super clear sense of Madeline's attitude about food straight off the bat, which also tells us a bunch about what her character would be in general. And through the assessment of the narrator, we get a sense of his attitudes as well, without him explicitly mentioning himself until the last paragraph.
I really like the interjection of narration between lines of dialogue.
ReplyDeleteThe end is awkward, but I think you knew that...
Perhaps mention where they are? All of the other foods have location attached, but not the salmon.
Rose requested a bit of clarification about the end of the story. There's nothing really to it. I just thought, "Grits, totally not what most people would consider good (especially how they make them here in the North). That would be a great food for her to love."
ReplyDeleteI also thought it would be funny if he didn't get any of the 'perfect food.'