Oysters

With an oyster in her palm, between a gummy kitchen rag and a shucker, she showed me how to push the tip of the knife in, straight, cinched, sucked in place enough to then begin to twist - a small opening. When the two hinged wings unfolded, then. She showed where the muscle connects, a second unlocking, shaped like a scallop, hiding beneath the folds of the meat, tight like a chinese finger trap. Encouraging me to cut the suck clean; "My dad says, 'Don't scramble it.'" "I'm scrambling it." The body separates, then, she says, "Take the tip and flip it," more beautiful when she's upside down, or maybe just less exposed.

We set aside 8 oysters with kitchen cultured mignonette; pour two glasses of slowing chilling, melon-hued pinot grigio, sit on the patio of her new home watching her three chickens lay side by side.

 

 Her boyfriend has constructed a chicken mansion. We put them in for the night. Stepped inside to make dinner together, light, a salad with halved tomatoes bursting in bright, strawberries, cucumbers, chicken, fields of green, more wine. She scooped the seeds from the core of the cucumbers, thin boats. Watching someone move in their kitchen is science of sensual intrigue. How efficient are they in their own space? Why are they removing the seeds? What tools do they need? We sit at the table like adults and finish the grigio. Have conversations about childhood sexuality, what kinds of lessons can we teach our own potential children when the topic is so fragile & how that which we feel about ourselves now is derivative of how we felt then. Maybe, the oysters encourage aphrodisiacal sensory conversations between two friends who ask questions.

After dinner we needed sweet. Girlfriend's got a collection of portos, so we developed our own tasting. My favorite - the Otima. On the kitchen chair, with the luxury of food and wine, we feed our human need to be full and happy and surrounded in words.