Eating Heaven

acknowledgments

Part 1 
Tonight, Why Not Eat Light?
7 Super-Easy Suppers That Won’t Weigh You Down!

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

chapter seven

Part 2 
Home Cooking: The Comforts of Old Family Favorites
9 Nostalgic Recipes You’ll Cherish

chapter eight

chapter nine

chapter ten

chapter eleven

chapter twelve

chapter thirteen

chapter fourteen

chapter fifteen

chapter sixteen

chapter seventeen

Part 3 
Out with the Old, In with the New!
9 New Dessert Traditions for a Healthier New Year

chapter eighteen

chapter nineteen

chapter twenty

chapter twenty-one

chapter twenty-two

chapter twenty-three

chapter twenty-four

chapter twenty-five

chapter twenty-six

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

eating heaven

A
New American Library
Book / published by arrangement with the author

All rights reserved.

Copyright ©
2005
by
Jennie Shortridge

This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

For information address:

The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
http://www.penguinputnam.com

ISBN:
978-1-1012-1045-1

A
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
  BOOK®

New American Library
Books first published by The New American Library Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
and the “
NAL
” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

Electronic edition: September, 2005

Other NAL Accent Novels
by Jennie Shortridge

Riding with the Queen

For my dad
And in memory of those who left too soon

This book is a labor of love made possible by many kind people:

My dear husband, Matt Gani, whose love, conviction, and support never waver. My agent, Jody Rein—her guidance and friendship always rings true. My editor, Leona Nevler, who provides wisdom and clarity, and her assistant, Susan McCarty, the answer woman.

Early readers whose enthusiasm invigorated me as I plowed on: Sherry Brown, Pam Vallone, Marianne Fry, Carol Frischmann, Carol Hickman, Jeri Pushkin, Ellen Johnson, Laurie Stoneham, Anne Cook, Lynne Kinghorn, Mary Bartek, Kristen Ashley, and Cindi Packard.

Portland’s many authors, who have been nothing but wonderful and welcoming to me and generous in sharing their knowledge, especially April Henry.

Bette Sinclair, Kathryn Kurtz, and Lorinda Moholt, who introduced me to Portland’s wonderful world of food and food writers. Food and wine expert Heidi Yorkshire, whose impeccable taste and eye for detail served this book well. Julie Pysklo, who provided her medical expertise for this book many years ago. Oncologist and editorial ace Nancy Boutin, and eating disorder experts Rick Ginsberg and Ruth Anderson, whose knowledge and insight were invaluable. Hospice nurse Carol Miller, who took care of my stepmother, Jeanne, and introduced my family to the loving kindness of hospice.

My family and friends, whose love sustains me. My readers, whose eagerness for more inspires me. And the many women who shared their stories with me—their honesty and generosity make them heroes in my eyes, and in the world.

To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.

—Karen Sunde

BY ELEANOR SAMUELS
You’ve picked up little Susie from soccer practice, and Tommy’s on his way home from the swim meet. Your husband dashes in, clutching his briefcase and gym bag after his postwork spinning class. The last thing you want to do is load up your active family with unwanted fat and calories. How can you make a quick, easy dinner that’s also healthy?

Yes, that is the burning question, isn’t it? Not “How can we end world hunger?” or “What exactly is in fat-free cheese?” Not “What on earth is this woman doing cooking for everyone else while they’re out doing something for themselves?”

More to the point, what am I doing writing crap like this?

C
heese. Bread. Butter. Noodles. You can almost hear America screaming, “Fat! Carbs! Fat! Carbs!” and it’s my job to calm the masses, to lead them down the “lite” path. Sure, writing for the kinds of magazines I do won’t fetch me any journalism prizes, but if nothing else, it’s easy. I start with a perfectly wonderful recipe and subtract and substitute everything good until it tastes like a rough imitation of its former self. Then I think of the most insipid, alliterative title I can, incorporating the tried-and-true “magic number”—that tantalizing digit that promises the impossible:

If I could write anything I wanted to, I’d write about the splendor of butter and sugar hitting your taste buds at the same time, or smooth pasta and sharp Romano, or a fat strawberry dipped in bittersweet chocolate. That kind of nirvana can only be achieved through fat and calories, and, yes, carbohydrates. Eat, for God’s sake, I’d tell the food phobes, the Atkins addicts, the warily weight watching. They’ve made consuming food far too complicated.

Here’s the article I should write:

I wish getting food into Uncle Benny’s mouth was that easy.

“What’d you say this stuff was?” he asks, sitting at his kitchen table in the same chair he’s always sat in, as long as I’ve known him. He stabs a piece of tofu with his fork, brings it close to his face to inspect it. “Mongoose and peanuts?”

“Very funny,” I say.

He’s fighting a flu bug, so he’s wearing the green robe that’s seen better days and tube socks, drugstore reading glasses parked on top of his not-quite-convincing comb-over. Thai tofu with Broccolini and peanuts is probably a stretch for a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, but I had a batch left over from my last article: “Why Order In? 8 Asian Dishes with Half the Fat.”

He sniffs the tofu, wrinkles his nose for effect.

I sigh, feigning irritation. It’s a dance we do, Uncle Benny and I, an old soft-shoe. He almost always likes what I bring him.

“For God’s sake. Just taste it, you old fart.”

A hint of a smile sneaks across his grizzled mug and he winks, then slides the fork into his mouth. He closes his eyes and smiles for real, face crumpling in that papery way I’ve loved since I was six years old.

“See? You gotta trust me, Ben. Cooking is the one thing I know how to do.”

Uncle Benny, on the other hand, knows how to do almost everything: He can unstick a door, quiet the squeaking of car brakes, and banish the burning rubber smell that wafts from my KitchenAid mixer
when I use it too much. He means more to me than my own father did, but the truth is, he’s not my uncle. I only wish he were.

“Why do we call him Uncle?” Christine asked once when we were eating our allotted two Oreos in the kitchen after school.

“Because we can’t call him Dad,” I said, and our older sister, Anne, looked up from her math book and widened her eyes, stifling a snicker. She’d started junior high and was rapidly developing a superior attitude along with breasts.

Mom turned from the sink, face stricken, and walked two steps toward me. She raised her delicate hand, dripping with dishwater, and slapped me. She’d never hit anyone, as far as I knew, but I wasn’t surprised. At the age of eleven, I’d recently changed my formerly reverential opinion of her, and it was almost as though I wanted her to slap me.

“Mom!” Christine cried. “Why’d you do that?”

She didn’t answer, just glared at me. I returned her stare until her eyes began to soften and fill and she turned back to the dishes. Anne slunk down behind her book. Christine looked at me, nine-year-old eyes welling. “Why’d she do that?” she asked again.

I shrugged. I wanted to touch the hot, wet swath of skin on my face, to cool it against my glass of milk. To feel where she’d laid her hand on me, if only in anger, but I wouldn’t in front of her. I grabbed the Oreo package and headed for my room, knowing my mother would be horrified at my brazenness. When I’d finished eating every cookie, I tilted the package and slid the crumbs into my mouth, then licked the blobs of white filling from the cellophane. Feeling sick to my stomach, I reclined on the bed, holding the side of my face, annoyed that it no longer hurt.

After I’ve cleared the dinner dishes, Uncle Benny breaks out the cards for a game of gin rummy. I watch his hands as he deals the cards: yellowed nails, fingers bent, skin spotted and sallow. Hands aged beyond their years by twisting greasy bolts, scraping knuckles on engine blocks. He never complains about the arthritis, but it’s painful to look at. I pick up my cards and say, “Nice hand, Ben. Maybe for once I’ll beat you.”

The kitchen’s sunshine yellow was Aunt Yolanda’s idea shortly after they married, an antidote to the gloom of Portland’s long, rainy winters. The metal stool I sit on now was here before she was, paint spattered and worn, and like me, it’s now outlasted her. Even though they had a long and, we thought, happy marriage, Yolanda left Benny last year with no explanation. A page of secrets ripped from a diary.

My sisters and I speculate: midlife crisis? She’s still in her fifties, even though Benny’s on the downhill slide to seventy. A younger man, maybe, closer to her own age? “A woman?” I say for effect, knowing it will get a rise out of stodgy Anne, a gasp from Christine. What we don’t mention, of course, is Mom, but it seems impossible after all these years. I certainly can’t ask Benny why Yolanda left. He mists over at the slightest reminder of her: her name on a piece of junk mail, a pink emery board discovered between couch cushions.

When Benny’s beaten me soundly three games in a row, he pulls the cards into a pile and rests his hands upon them.

“You look tired,” I say, and he nods. It’s not quite eight o’clock.

At the door, he helps me with my raincoat. “Thanks for the dinner, honey. You should be feeding some young fella, not your old fart uncle.”

I snort. Young fella. Benny will forever think of me as a kid. “Yeah, well, when he shows up, I’ll let you know.” I swing my purse onto my shoulder, patting my pockets for keys.

He squeezes my arm. “Believe I’ll just watch TV until bed,” he says, then shuffles toward the couch, settling slowly into the cushions, clutching his abdomen. His face is too serious, his movements too careful.

“What’s wrong? I didn’t poison you, did I?” Maybe tofu wasn’t such a good idea.

He waves a hand at me as he rolls onto his side. “Nah, I’m fine, Ellie. Just can’t seem to shake this goddamn flu. It up and hits me every so often.”

I walk over and pull the throw from the back of the sofa, place it on his scrawny legs. I’m tempted to tuck him in, but I just stand and look at him, wondering now if I should leave.

“What’re you gawking at? Go home, Miss Roosevelt. I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

He raises his eyebrows, an empty threat.

“Have you been going to the tanning parlor?” I tilt my head, look closely at his face. It’s been bugging me all night, and I just figured it out. The color of his skin looks artificial and tawny. Who knows—maybe he’s thinking about dating again.

He guffaws, inspecting his arms in the dim lamplight. “What the hell are you talking about?” he says, shaking his head, and he looks like himself again, just sleepy and getting older. He grabs the remote from the coffee table and clicks on the TV. “Now if you don’t mind,
Matlock
comes on at eight.”

He’s fine,
I decide. I resist the urge to lean down and kiss his cheek, something we reserve for only the best or worst of occasions.

“Okay, okay,” I say, walking back toward the door, digging through the lists and receipts and wayward mints in the bottom of my purse until I hear the jangle of keys. “I’ll be back Thursday, and I promise I’ll bring you something with meat in it this time. But you have to promise me you’ll call the doctor tomorrow, okay?”

There’s no answer, and I turn to look at him. He’s already asleep, jaw drooping, hand hanging idly off the couch, remote dropped to the floor. I hold my breath and count—
one, two, three, four, five
—until he begins to snore. Then I turn out the lights, click the lock into place, and step out into the cool March night.