You are going to die. I am going to die. We are all going to die. A little like that children's ditty: I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice scream. That's what My Last Supper is about. A few questions to prepare us for the end:
What would you like to have for your final meal?
Who would cook it?
Where would you eat it?
What music would be playing?
Who would join you for the meal?
My Last Supper. No, this entry has nothing to do with Easter, despite the eggs and bunnies in Wegmans. In fact, it has nothing to do with religion at all. Rather, it has to do with a wonderful Christmas gift I received (ok, Christmas? No religion? I was wrong.) The gift: a book entitled My Last Supper. No mention of Jesus at all. No mention of Da Vinci's last supper. Rather, this book, by Melanie Dunea, is a coffee table book par excellence. Lovely photographs of chefs and food and. . . -- well, not always lovely but definitely delicious. The premise? A game chefs (and yes, others) play: what would you eat if you knew it were your last supper? The subtitle tells all: 50 Great Chefs and their Final Meals/Portraits, Interviews and Recipes. Many of the chefs are people we have all heard of: Gordon Ramsay (yes, I watch him on TV), Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Mario Batali (one of my favorite pictures, he looks like he is JUST about to laugh or that he knows we are just about to do so), Gary Danko (another favorite because he looks OH SO GAY), Lidia Bastianich (ok, her hat is made of pasta and it still looks beautiful). You cannot see it on the gallery below, but yes, the most surprising one in many ways is that bad guy who started it all in some weird way: Anthony Bourdain. I confess, the one that makes me feel best though, is Charlie Trotter. Now that guy. . .
The book not only describes the final meal, who would cook and what music would play, but it also includes recipes. Yes, wonderful ones. Not necessarily what I would want for my final meal, but definitely fun to peruse.They range, as do the chefs' answers to the interview queries, from very simple to quite high faultin'. Fois gras plays a role in some, excellent bread in others. The recipes tease the reader into thinking, now, what if it was my final meal. . . . What would I want? What music would play? Who would cook? And who would I invite? Let me start at the front of the book again. This book can be read and re-read. It raises questions. Existential questions meant for late at night with too many drinks.
My answers: I have no idea. I have a hard time imagining mortality, I guess, or endings. My final meal: I hope it comes as a surprise that it is the final one. I hope that it tastes wonderful and that I get to cook it with or for the anonymous bathroom reviewer. I hope it involves either tamarind or french fries or sauerkraut or ice cream and comes with delightful drinks and conversation. I hope there are loads of flowers around the house that day. I hope the sun is shining and the sky very very blue. I hope I am smiling not being cranky. And I hope I do not have to go to work the next day even in my imagination.
And you? What would your final meal be? Eaten with whom? Cooked by or with whom? And with what music?
Don't want to play? The game too morbid? For inspiration in the form of 12 of the photographs of chefs from My Last Supper in a virtual gallery (together with captions filling you in on their ideas of the final meal they'd like to experience), click here.
For a Youtube video on the making of the book, click here. Or an NPR excerpt, click here.
