My latest USED find from Amazon is "My Last Supper" by photographer Melanie Dunea- it arrived today, and am I impressed/entertained!

The premise of the book is based on the game that cooks and chefs all over play (including we, here!)... and asks these 6 questions: What would be your last meal? Who would cook it? Where would you eat it? Who would dine w/ you? What would you drink w/ this meal? Would there be music?

It's an extra-large volume (originally $39.95- found USED for $3.45!) and it contains lavish, interesting/artful Annie Leibovitz-style portraits of 50 well-known chefs, (Including Lidia, Mario, Bourdain, Florence, Pepin, Keller, Bayless, and others- plus about 10-15 who I hadn't heard of at all) their interviews, and recipes. This book won't go on my cookbook shelf in the kitchen- rather, I'll keep it in the living room amongst stacks of other coffee-table books on art, architecture and botany.



Amazon.com: My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals / Portraits, Interviews, and Recipes: Melanie Dunea: Books

Okay- let's play!

Here are the questions again: 1.) What Would Your Last Supper Be? 2.) Who Would Cook it For You? 3.) Where Would You Eat it? 4.) Who Would Be Your Dining Companions? 5.) Would There Be Drink? 6.) Would There Be Music?




My Last Supper

Who will cook it? In every happy life there is also tragedy- and the tragedy in mine was the loss of my mother to the dark shadows of mental illness when I was about ten. When I was a youngster, Mom showed no signs of this plaguing illness- in fact she was the perfect Mom, and a fantastic cook. As her symptoms developed and the different, impacted “she” emerged, she lost all the kitchen knowledge of her prior self, and the tastes of my youth became lost forever. So, in my last supper fantasy, the mother of my youth returns to cook for me.
Among my best memories are those of Mom working in her kitchen. That’s one reason why I chose a labor-intensive menu, to prolong the preparation so I could sit near her to watch one final time as she hacked-apart a whole hen, peeled a pan of spuds, whisked a skillet of pan-gravy, shucked a bushel of corn, pared a mess of apples, rolled-out her pastry dough, cranked the ice-cream freezer, and cracked an apron-full of walnuts.

Where Will Your Last Supper Be? My passing need happen in late summer, because my meal must also include several ears of Illinois sweet corn, and a platter of thick-sliced Arkansas Beefsteak tomatos. We will feast at my Mom’s formica kitchen table near the window that looks onto the garden and the cornfields beyond. The food’ll be served on chipped china from the hutch obtained years earlier with traded S&H Green Stamps. We’ll drink sun-tea from jelly-jars, and there’ll be a tiny bouquet of violets, dandelions and clover- just like I gathered for Mom as a boy.

What Will Your Last Supper Be? Cooking’s been my bread & butter since my teen years; as a chef I’ve eaten exotic foods worth a king’s ransom- but at death, I choose to go out of this world, the same way I came in- nourished by modest fare from my mother’s table. First, there’ll be a basket of warm clover-leaf rolls and corn muffins w/ soft butter and a jar of tart grape jelly from the basement- so purple it’s almost black. Also from the basement a jar of her sweet, mustardy bread & butter pickles. Then a medley of her best: fried chicken, fatty flour-fried bone-in pork chops, and whole corn-mealed catfish w/ crispy tail still attached. The sides will be her mashed potatos & pan gravy, string beans w/ bacon & onions, and apple cake w/ homemade vanilla ice cream. And since I’ll be buying-the-farm before the holidays roll ‘round, a plate of her Christmas walnut-fudge, and perhaps a big wedge of something no one makes anymore- mincemeat pie.

With whom will you dine? Just Mom, me and my cats. I’ll have said sweet goodbyes to everyone else, before hand- besides, I’ve always been known for slipping-out from a party, sneaky-like and unannounced!

Will there be music? There’ll be peaceful sounds of folksy Nanci Griffith quietly singing ‘Trouble in the Fields’ and ‘Deadwood, South Dakota’, bluesy Tracy Chapman singing ‘Mountains o’ Things’, and sultry Sarah Vaughn singing vintage velvety-smooth songs of tender romance.

Lastly… Death will come for me polite and well-mannerd in the quiet of sleep- painless and sweet. I will have gone to bed sated in every way- slipped naked between cool cotton summer-sheets as heat-lightening sparkles in the distance, and on some faraway porch, wind-chimes tinkle.

Glad you enjoyed the book, Kevin.

You know, they played that game in Yum!. Among other silly questions, the contributing chefs were asked "if you were condemmed to die, what would be your last meal."

I always thought Nick Malgieri was the only one to answer honestly. He said: "If I were condemmed to die I don't think I would be in the mood to eat."

I feel the same. If I knew I was going to die, there'd be a lot more important things on my mind than planning a last meal.

Funny, Brook... this l'il "game" and others like it (name three things you always have in your fridge) have always been fun l'il interests for me- especially at these conversation forums. But in the book "My Last Supper" this game is reported to be something that occupied the break-time conversations of cooks and chefs throughout all of history! And although I'm not surprised- this still was news to me in ways...

Like you, I think many would have other things on their mind at their time of death- in fact, the 50th chef photographed and interviewed for the book is legend Guy Savoy and his page, alongside his portrait, simply reads something like "Dear Madame, While I appreciate your kind admiration, my personal superstition prohibits me from pondering my "closing"- instead I try always to build on my "opening"! I thought that was neat and interestingly inventive!

Happy Easter, Brook!

Well I am feeling it Kevin, after reading yours I would love to play what if!

WHO WILL COOK IT?
I would want my Cuban grandmother across the street to call me from her back porch and have me come in and watch her make me the tastiest treats in all the world!!!! There were these fried potato balls "Papas Rellenas" that were filled with a ground meat called beef Picadillo, these were so delicious! Then she made a Guava Tart that was deep-fried, and also black beans and yellow rice. She was the most unconditionally loving woman I ever met, and took simple and pure joy in feeding this little neighbor girl across the street her wonderful Cuban cusine, we never understood one word we said to one another, and yet the love we felt for one another needed no interpretation!!!

WHERE WILL IT BE?
In my old neighborhood where I grew up in Miami Springs!

WITH WHOM WILL YOU DINE?
With my Cuban grandmother and no one else!

WILL THERE BE MUSIC?
No

WHEN AND WHERE I WOULD LIKE TO PASS?
Well these matters are in the Good Lord's hands, but more than likely I would prefer it to be painless, and under some palm trees blowing gently in the breeze at night on a solitude stretch of beach with only the glow of the moonlight and the smell of salt water in the air. And I would most likely be praying and asking God's mercy and giving Him Thanks for all these years and for all eternity to be spent with Him, His angels, and all the saints singing to Him in all His GLORY for all eternity!