Week 5 Theme 4

Take time to talk to someone you would like to write about in the form of a brief profile.

I arrive a little early to the dinner party, like I usually do, and find Paul in the kitchen. He greets me the way he always does. “Here, try this,” he says, dipping a spoon into a large pot on the stove. I know to taste before I ask what it is. Today, it’s a creamy oyster stew, good as always. Paul puts down his ladle to gesture with both arms. “You know what I was thinking? Andrew?” he says as he leads me to another counter. “I’ll put the stew in these bowls and cover ‘em with a puff pastry. How’s that sound?” Delicious. As always.

“Hey, so I was thinking we should do a Chinese New Year’s dinner,” he says as he pinches the puff pastries onto their bowls, “maybe with some fish, and fried rice, and maybe bok choi on the side. What do you think?”

Paul has recently been exploring Chinese food, kicked off by a trip to New York’s Chinatown. According to his friends, he took to the food like Charybdis in a drought. Perhaps his cravings were finally convincing him, or perhaps he was simply trying to expand his range as a chef. Having grown up watching others prepare Chinese food, I was quickly becoming his source of inspiration.

“I was thinking maybe I could steam some cod with a bit of soy sauce. What do you usually do?”

“I usually use sea bass.”

“Like Chilean sea bass? Oh, you mean with the fatty steaks? That’ll be amazing!”

With Paul, it always is.