"I'll come around for dinner" he says, and I'm taken a little by surprise, I seldom entertain other than the children. I think quickly of some excuse...
"I have to paint" I say, which is true, "And run some errands this afternoon..."
"That's OK. I'll be there around 5:00. I'll bring this meal I got, it's real good..." but I'm not listening, I'm wondering how this happened and if it means I should clean, but only briefly. The cleaning instinct is one I can resist. I never entertain. Never, Ever. I'm the guy people have over to their place in a moment of weak compassion and then swear never to have back again; me, entertaining?
"I'll pick up some beer...maybe you could pick up some..." and he stops, he can see here from my expression that I'm picking up nothing - "Forget it, you're busy, I'll get it all...."
He shows up at 5:00 sharp, he's got this meal in a box, it's a small box, about 4 inches square, he bought it off a lady at some farmers market, "Completely Organic" he assures me, but I don't really care. "It's really good....cost me $16.00".
It's a small box for $16.00 and I'm a little skeptical that it will feed us both and watch while he assembles the meal.
He turns on the light above the stove. This annoys me, I hate it when people know how to use my kitchen better than I do. He opens the box. There's a small bag of rice, and assorted spices in a separate bag.
"Add 1 1/2 cup of water to the rice in a pot..." he begins.
And the meal progresses. It's a basic Thai coconut curry, the seasonings are in tiny presealed pouches, for $16.00 he's bought himself roughly a dollars worth of groceries, I have all of the ingredients myself, enough for a hundred curries, in my cupboard, but I watch as he proceeds to pull forth meat from hi bag (sold separately) and chop it, slice vegetables (sold separately), add coconut milk (sold separately) ...
It's inspiring, this, the fact that you can sell people a half cup of rice and tablespoons worth of "spices" for $16.00 and call it a meal and they'll happily cough forth the rest of the ingredients, the meat, vegetables, broth, and not even include these in the final price of the meal....
And for some reason I have this sense of dejavu, I know this game and I puzzle and puzzle and finally it comes to me: It's Stone Soup.