an evening to remember

Warning: contains immature humor intended for mature audiences

Setting it up: Back when I worked at 5Ninth restaurant in New York (I really worked there for all of a month), the chef’s right-hand guy had this saying. Imagine, 11pm on a Friday night. A private party has just been seated on the third floor. The second floor has sixty-odd diners, and the bar on the first floor is rocking to a techno groove, brimming with well-off hipster 30-somethings with a drink in each hand. We, the kitchen are, as they say, in the weeds, and there are still two hours left until we're closed. The waiters keep making mistakes, and we cannot seem to keep up. Even if he has been imbibing, every word is stressed and meticulously enunciated: “Manhattan. Friday night. What's gonna happen next?!?”

The day: A rather uneventful day, I woke up and spent most of it on the sofa where I now sleep. At around 4pm I decided it was time to go shop for the remaining ingredients I required for dinner. Coq au vin over pommes aligotes had the starring role, preceded by a simple greek salad, and followed by Crème caramel, a dish often served here, and always lackluster. I went out with Jane and Mo in tow, stopping for sandwiches at his uncle’s butcher stall after the big hike uphill to the food market. We ducked into a Berber tea stall next door to eat our sandwiches, sip tea, and breathe second-hand hashish. By the time we were out, it had started dripping rain. By the time we were finally at the top of the hill, it was pouring with big, heavy, freezing gobs of water. These were not your ordinary raindrops: it was like large hail that had melted just before reaching our bodies. I quickly shopped, and we ran back home after stopping at Mo's for an umbrella.

The meal: I chose the rooster a few days ago, and waited as the butcher slaughtered it before my eyes. It was a handsome cock, if a little small. The bottle of wine was acceptable--nothing extraordinary, but definitely worthy of the bird. The eggs I used for dessert were free range, with bright orange yolks--the kind that are so hard to find in the states. The milk was milked yesterday, raw and sweet. Dinner was set, the main dish on the table, when the doorbell rang. Seeham and her boyfriend stopped in to say hi. Moroccan hospitality, our own courtesy, necessitated they sit down with us for dinner. Mo got right on frying up some more turkey cutlets--even though the wine was cooked for hours, they could not partake in the main course: their religion forbids it. Not to toot my own horn, but my housemates were emphatic in their praises of my cock. This had Jane and me giggling for the better part of the meal, and when Mo translated coq to Arabic (dick), EB and Whitney joined in the laughter. Not to leave them in the dark, we explained our amusement; our Moroccan guests were just as pleased. Dinner was great, dessert continued on the theme. Even better, Jane, bless her heart, washed the dishes.

Fez. Friday night. What’s gonna happen next: Jane’s leaving in the morning. The post office giving me the runaround here, I appealed to her to take a gift back home for mailing, and went to fetch some money for the stamps. Except my stash of cash was missing. Every last dollar, every euro. About $300, all told. EB’s similar stash had been recently noticed as missing as well. She had figured it had simply been misplaced as she organized her closet. Naturally, that is no longer as plausible of a conclusion. Must have been the maid, a rather affordable luxury up until now. And so, we remind ourselves, of all ways to lose something, and of all things to lose, money could not be any safer or easier to replace. Friday night is over; what will Saturday bring?