Joe has an idea for a recipe -- he decides he wants to make "knight's bread." He lays out what it's going to be.
White bread, he says, with midnight blue icing and little white sugar stars and yellow sugar stars. He's looking forward to this. Tomorrow, I say, we'll make knight's bread. And the day comes. At lunch, I say, we can make it.
We have the white bread. I get some white icing, and we mix it with blue food coloring. We add a fair amount, and it goes dark blue. We sort out some yellow and white stars from a shaker jar of them. I show him how to use a rubber spatula. We smear the icing on comprehensively. He dots it with stars.
It is just how he imagined it would be.
He takes a bite. He chews.
"Daah! Daah! Thif if awfuh! Thif if difguftin!" And he leans over like a dog that has licked a poorly selected toad, and half-chewed food falls on the floor.
"Take it to the bathroom!" I say. "In the sink! In the toilet! NOT ON THE CARPET!"
He runs to the bathroom. Some appears in the sink. More on the tile floor. He looks up, blue pouring down his chin like some ravening beast that has slain. A lion and its stilled gazelle; Voldemort and the unicorn; Britney Spears and her career.
"Dad," he says, "That is SO DISGUSTING."
"Happens," I said. "Even the great chefs..."
"Dad," he interrupts, "do you think Mom would like some?"
