#60 -- Milo & Mabel are back!

A racoon, fate, and a little bit of magic.

Arlo & Me. Jackman, Maine 2023

I hope you all had a great weekend. It was a rainy, hot, and mosquito-laden one for me, but also very inspiring and productive.

I won’t lie, I’ve been in a bit of a writing slump of late. The essays and ramblings have been flowing and I’m thankful for them, but one of the main reasons I started this newsletter was to work on my novel and to share it with people, to share the process and the progress.

And I started out great. Each day I was writing a couple pages and the idea was there and the words came out. True, I struggled with the present vs. past tense and 1st vs. 3rd person but the words and scenes came out and made sense, at least to me. And I fell in love with the scenery and the characters and the basic premise of Milo, a man in his 30’s living a dull existence, newly divorced and in a lackluster job until a switch is clicked on his brain and he goes a bit mad, with the help of Mabel. Mabel is a male raccoon for you new readers. (Fear not, excerpts abound in the archives.)

But life, ennui, and fear crept in and there would be days where the story lay dormant in the back of my mind, sleeping but never peacefully. It would gnaw at me and nip at my synapses only to be pushed back into its hole.

But believe it or not, an existential cooking crisis by my friend and editor caused this to rise out, to crawl itself from the recesses. It should be noted he is a very talented cook as well as an editor. I thought to myself, this could happen to me. I could just one day not write, or I could not want to cook. The idea of giving up crossed my mind more than once.

But that same friend texted me recently with a fire in his belly, a torrent of cooking. picture after picture of him riffing on recipes without a net. Three words typed:

“I’m back baby!”

That’s what it took to bring me back, that one person who believes in themselves. And believes in me. It just flipped my own switch.

So I returned to Milo and Mabel, along with his cooking muse Antoine. The scene is set at Antoine’s rental and they are scheming on the best dinner for Milo’s first date with Julie. It seemed a fitting return to combine my loves, food and writing.

It’s raw but it’s getting there. The theme of my life, it would seem.

Without further ado…

---

Over the next 45 minutes while the bacon cooked, Antoine helped me develop a menu plan for dinner with Julie.  There were several limiting factors.  One, I had to make it, so it must not be too complicated.  Two, it had to be something that could be made in my kitchen, which was still very primitive.  A stovetop, an oven, a few pots and pans and a fridge. The furniture in the place had been upgraded by the kitchen was pretty bare.  I could probably get a microwave but for anything else, it would require a trip to Portland.  I did have access to a very talented chef in Antoine, but that was about it at the moment.

We discussed what I did know how to make, which was basically scrambled eggs.

“You could make breakfast,” he said.  “But that doesn’t sound very romantic for a first date.”

“You could cook for me,” I said.  “And I don’t know that it’s actually a date.”

Antoine gave me that look I was beginning to know well.  His jowls and mouth scrunched up and his lips pursed as if he were about to speak, but then he doesn’t and instead he darted his eyes to me.  It’s an effective scowl, I thought.

“You have an effective scowl,” I said.

“You have to cook for yourself, Milo.  This will be a night to remember.” He points to the sky for emphasis and I inwardly groan.

I tell him he’s being overly dramatic.  He looked at me and, in between gulps of his screwdriver he tells me there is no such thing.

“Life is drama, in both happiness and sadness, joy and fear.  You seize the moments you want to hold.”

“You sound like a hallmark card.”

He starts to protest, but I cut him off.  “Okay, okay, I get it.  You’re a passionate guy, you have thoughts and ideas I just don’t have.  Well I do have them sometimes, but mostly I’m just trying to get by.”

Antoine scoffs.  “Get by?  What kind of life is that?  Each day is a chance to be something new, Milo.  To do something that makes you feel alive.  What else do we have?”

I took a sip of my screwdriver.  I could smell the bacon cooking.  It smelled like spices and meat and fat, as distinct as any smell emanating from the oven.  I thought about what he was saying.  There was some truth in it.  When I looked at Antoine, I saw someone larger than life – loud, brash, enigmatic.  He stood tall, could walk in a room and own it in a second, could talk to anyone, whereas I felt panic ordering at a drive through window.  What the fuck was I so afraid of?

Antione went on.  “You came here for a reason, Milo.  I don’t believe it was just random.  Mabel” – he gestures over to him, cuddled up next to the fire – “Mabel brought you here to help you start over.”  He put his drink down and, putting his hands on my shoulders, he looked directly at me and said, “It’s magic, yes?  This world is full of magic.  Fate, kismet, fancy, aligning stars, whatever the fuck you want to call it, it brought you here, to this time, to this place.  You can get by, as you say, or you can seize it.  You can take what is given you and make it into what you want.”

“You’re an intense guy, Antoine.”  I could feel the weight of his hands on my shoulders and the weight of his eyes on mine. 

He smiled.  Not just a grin, but a big, toothy smile.  It was part of his charm, this smile.  He reminded me of an exchange student we had in our 9^th grade class.  The girls all adored him.  Partly it was because he was new to the school, the accent, and the sheer beauty of his annoying face.  But mostly it was the charm.  The fucker could charm the weariest and wariest teacher into a smile, delay a pop quiz by simply opening his mouth and speaking in German.  You wanted to hate the kid, but you couldn’t.  Every boy wanted to be him and every girl wanted him.  They would fawn over him.

This was Antoine in a nutshell.  In an incredibly beguiling nutshell.

He pulled his hands off me, slapped them together in front of my face and said, “I know what to do!  What you will do.”

He paused. “But first let’s check on the bacon.” 

He opened the oven, lifted the try and peered in.  The aroma was almost overpowering and the smoke permeated the room. I was surprised it was smoking so much and told him so.

“That’s the secret to the bacon.  You want it crispy and soft.  Crunchy and tender.  If you keep it from curling, you will achieve both.”  He closed the door and turned back to me, his face partially obscured from the smoke.

Antoine looked at me and said, “I have it.  It’s nearly foolproof.  The secret is you can prep all of them ahead of time and be ready to go when she comes over.  The best part?  It’s super impressive.  She’s gonna love it.”  He once again flashed that grin.

I said, “Well don’t keep me in suspense!  What is it?”

“Not so fast.  Couple quick questions.  Do you have a cast iron skillet?” 

I nodded.

“Good.  I think it will work then.  Okay, so we are going to have to do some shopping, but the good thing is, I think we can get it all in town.  And I even have the meat already.”

He was dragging it out, I knew.  Mabel knew too.  He was sitting up now, watching Antoine intently, as if he couldn’t wait to hear.

“You will start out with a simple lettuce and endive salad, with tomatos and goat cheese and a dill dressing.  I keep this dressing in my resto all the time.  Simple, creamy yet tangy and delicious.  For the main course?  Pork chops stuffed with morel mushrooms and a sour cherry sauce, mustard greens with sherry vinegar and citrus, fried new baby potatoes with sage and for dessert?  A vanilla crème brulee with sour cherry compote.”

He looked at me, eyes open wide as if to ask, “What do you think?”

I looked back at him and said, “You are fucking crazy”

“What are you saying?”

“How on earth can I do all that?”  There was no way in hell, I thought.

“You can do this,” he told me.   “This is the mantra at my place.  All cooking comes from the heart, but it really comes down to the “Ts” --  Timing and Technique.  You have time, right?”  He had me there.  I had several days to prepare and little else on my plate, so to speak. 

He continued.  “And I will show you the technique.  Come on, Milo.  What do you say?”

“Fuck it,” I said.  Where do we begin?”

---

There you have it. My brain feels the better for it. Let’s hope it continues. I’ll be back Thursday. Not sure if Milo will be there or it’ll be another rambling, but he’s back as well. And I, for one, am glad.

Thanks for indulging me,

~ Tim