Our special tonight is student duck

SHERWOOD KIRALY

A bookish man is never bored, but the same cannot be said for the

people who live with him. Now and then Patti Jo looks at me reading

and thinks, “Is this what marriage is all about?” Whereupon the

bookish man finds himself accompanying his spouse to Laguna Culinary

Arts for a special one-night, four-hour cooking class. Patti Jo calls

this making memories, and I can’t say she’s wrong.

There were five couples in the class -- actually two quartets;

Patti Jo and I were the odd couple. The teacher, Megan, met us with

nametags, aprons and a waiver to sign in case we burned, chopped or

diced ourselves. Then she took us into the kitchen and began her

tutorial preface.

We were going to make seared breast of duck with plum sauce,

spinach and bacon salad, stuffed eggplant and dark chocolate and

cherry creme brulee. Megan said we’d be doing a lot of chopping and

briskly demonstrated the correct technique, surgically attacking an

onion with a giant, murderous knife. We were also supposed to do

something with duck fat and lemon zest ... I looked at the other

students to see if any of them were as bewildered as I was.

See, when I cook, I don’t do courses; I don’t even use

ingredients. I take one item and heat it. I can do that. Megan was

talking about eggplant boats and couscous and melting chocolate with

heated creme fraiche and some kind of icy glaze to put over the

brandied cherries. The stuffed eggplant alone had as many components

as a car engine. And everyone was listening calmly, apparently

without fear. The menu included 10 breasts of duck, but only one fish

out of water.

I thought of running, but dismissed the idea. Patti Jo wouldn’t

have understood. There was nothing to do but go to our station, grab

a knife and start on my eggplant boat. The next thing I knew, I was

fluffing couscous.

Patti Jo cheerfully chopped away beside me, tears in her eyes from

the onion. She likes it when we do things together. The hours more or

less flew by.

Actually, the breast of duck was prepared in a Kiralyesque way --

score it, sear it, drain the fat, bake it. And then you fry some red

potatoes in the duck fat; that’s a delicacy in France.

Megan timed everything so we were eating one course while the

later ones were cooking or chilling. And I must say the two items I

helped with the least -- the duck and the potatoes -- were

outstanding. We ate, we thanked Megan, said goodbye to our co-chefs

and went home happy. Of course, I’m always happy to go home.

So we made another memory and I made a few points. And that may

just be what marriage is all about.