The Perfect Meal

 Cody Howrigon

How does one define “the perfect meal?” Is it something universal, that anyone with the slightest bit of culinary taste or knowledge ought to find perfection in? Or is it a more personal thing, one that we all have our own unique, valuable perspective on? I like to believe in the latter explanation, as I think most people do. To me, the search for the perfect meal had a certain set of a priori criteria that had to be met in order to even be considered as being worthy. The criteria are: (1) it had to take place on a Sunday (2) those I love most must be involved (3) the food has to possess fresh, quality ingredients, and the cook’s focus must be on taste above all else (such as health, presentation or any other worthless detail). These three criteria may be simple, and perhaps even easy to achieve. This does not take away from the beauty of the experience, however.

         In my quest to create my idea of the perfect meal, the first thing I did was address the first of my three prerequisites to food perfection -- the meal had to take place on a Sunday. Sunday has always been an important day to me. This is not because I am religious. In fact, I’m the furthest one can be from religious. Sunday is and always has been a special day to me, because it was the one day of the week where the world seemed to actually take a break, and where my mind could be at ease. It’s a day known in the Howrigon family as a day to stop whatever it is we’re doing, forget all the stress accumulated from the past six days, and come together as a family to enjoy one another’s company around the dinner table. This strong trend in my family’s history makes it impossible for me to imagine what a perfect meal would be, if it weren’t taking place on a Sunday.

         The second criterion I had to meet was ensuring that my family would be with me to enjoy the meal I was to prepare. Reading this, one might make the argument that this is the same as the previous criterion, but this is not the case. They are two exclusive, essential parts of what it is I define as the perfect meal. If for example, my family were to meet for a meal on a Friday night as opposed to a Sunday, this would still be a fantastic meal. It would fall short of the status of perfect however, as it would be missing that last crucial ingredient of the day in which it took place. The reasons this criterion is important to me is more obvious than the last, and probably needs the least amount of explanation. My family has always been close. I love them all more than life itself, as the cliché goes. There is nothing I consider perfect in this world that doesn’t include them.

 The third bullet point on my recipe for gastronomic perfection, is the all-important question of “what the hell are we going to eat?” This one was difficult, as there is a seemingly infinite amount of possibilities to choose from. Creativity is not my strong-suit, nor is cooking. The genius of it though, is that my lack of culinary expertise is irrelevant really. This is MY idea of the perfect meal, isn’t it? Assuming the first two of my three bits of criteria are met, and so long as the ingredients are of high-quality and fresh, I don’t really give a damn what we eat. With this in mind I made my way to a favorite local food store – Harding’s Friendly Market - where high-quality, fresh products have been the theme by which the store has built its reputation for decades. Well-aware of my cooking deficiencies and lack of patience, I scanned the aisles of the store looking for something that was both simple and temporally expedient, but also tasty. A light-bulb went off when I came to the meat aisle: burgers. Who doesn’t like a burger who's actually had one? As I stood there in aisle 13, searching through the assortment of severed animal parts, my mouth began to water. A sudden flood of excitement welled up inside me as I began to formulate the monster of a burger I was to concoct. No, a normal burger just wouldn’t do. The initial apathy my journey began with had turned into an obsession with creating a pile of ground-beef, cheese, and bacon that would turn any vegetarian to the dark side. The meat had to be of the highest quality (and therefore the highest price), and the bacon had to be apple-smoked, and the primest of cuts Harding’s Friendly Market had to offer. Your stereotypical American Cheese wouldn’t do either. I had to get the brick-sized mammoth of cheddar cheese instead (also obscenely expensive). Tomatoes and romaine lettuce were also in my cart, but were there mostly to compensate for the guilt many in my family would be experiencing for having eaten such an artery clogging dish. Oh yeah, I would throw in a side salad, too.

 After I had all my ingredients accounted for and bought, I headed to my Uncle’s house where the rest of my family awaited my arrival. Everyone was there: my mother and father, two sisters, Grandparent’s,  Aunt’s, Uncle’s, and a whole slew of cousins. The calendar on the wall read Sunday, November 13. The two most crucial aspect of the meal were in place, now all I needed to do was follow through on the third. They all assured me that they were hungry, and predictably blamed their hunger on my “always taking forever to shop.” With that, I got right to work, and began by giving orders. My 15 year-old cousin Scott, was to watch the patties on the grill and flip them all once every five minutes for 15 minutes. My dad was watching the simmering bacon, ensuring that they were taken out as soon as the right crispy-to-soft ratio was achieved. I chopped all the tomatoes and set out the onions and romaine lettuce. I also threw together a nuts and berries salad: mixed greens, extra-large walnuts, dried raspberries, feta cheese, slivered carrots, and balsamic vinaigrette were used. I also had the joy of cutting the brick-sized block of cheese for 15 people, many of which would be asking for seconds. I did this by flipping the block of cheese vertically, and cutting as many 2-centimeter-thick slices that I could. The result was more than enough for everyone. The patties and bacon surprisingly were finished at approximately the same time, and the moment we were all waiting for had finally come. I laid out all the ingredients in a line across the island countertop in my Uncle’s kitchen, and we took our spots standing around the food, hand-in-hand, as my grandmother prepared the pre-meal prayer. As everyone stands with heads bowed and hearts full of the holy spirit, I’m trying to decide how many slices of bacon I should top my burger with.

Once the prayer came to a close and everyone was finally seated at the dinner table with their mountain of meat before them, the long-awaited moment began. This was the greatest burger I have ever had. I think this had a lot to do with my total disregard for the amount of money I spent on the ingredients, and the sheer unhealthfulness of the creation. Mostly though, as I sat in my chair at the table, listening to my Aunt giving her usual stories of awkward social encounters and everyone laughing hysterically at the punch-lines, I realized that it was because of them and the state of mind we all shared, that I enjoyed it so much. This was the perfect meal. Its perfection laid not in the exquisite quality of the food (don’t get me wrong, the food was great), but it laid in the fact that the food was an excuse for us all to come together, and to enjoy one another’s company. Like the great Anthony Bourdain says, “it’s not about the food you eat, it’s about who you eat the food with.”