This. Was. AMAZING!
It'd been years since I had it last, but I knew Louisiana would always be good for it. It'd become my favorite food, so seeing it here was a great joy. In Arabic it goes by ام علي, meaning "risen or lifted mother".
The sweetness of the pudding itself was subtle, but topped with dulce de leche, vanilla chantilly, strawberry compote, or caramelized honey, it became the most heavenly dessert. I hadn't had any since I came back from the Arab World, but here it was in front of me, a giant tureen of it resting on the buffet table of the venue in New Orleans.
I had only been there a few weeks at that point so this was the first one of his events that I was attending outside my hometown. We were at one of those mansion-turned-hotels on Saint Charles, standing in a high-ceilinged and fireplace-heated ballroom.
Now that I'd been there a while, I'd warmed up to the city (literally) and felt more comfortable going out and about during the day while he was at work. He seemed to notice this recent confidence in me so when the next function was on home field, he offered to bring me.
Now, I could get along with people just fine. I liked them, they liked me. But something told me I wouldn't find much common ground with these people in particular. They were in alcohol sales, I didn't drink. They dealt in finance, I hated the economy. They wanted everything to stay the same and I wanted things to be very different. I didn't really know what to expect now that I was a guest at these functions, not catering them.
I ate about four or five servings of ام علي by the time the night was over. That was by far the best part of the night. The food in general was great and the hotel was beautiful, but they did a little to soften the blow. The colorful walls and drinks and paintings could not carry the mundane mass of gray suits.
I wondered for a second if there was a dress code I'd missed and if there was, how mad they would be with my choice of attire. I say choice loosely. He brought me with the condition I wear something "nice". To him, that meant designer. Gaudy, boring, overdone, and corrupt designer.
He dragged me to a few of those glorified department stores, but I insisted I could not wear anything from there. I told him my style was more "global market" not "luxury mall" (derogatory).
He did not know what that meant.
"This one's pink. You like pink."
I worried for a moment that IQ's were contagious.
I finally got him to agree to one of the high-end boutiques on Magazine. I opted for a silk peaches-and-cream colored dress with an open neckline, shoulders bare but still covered with a spans of fabric that collected around my upper arms and draped over my torso like a shawl. The bottom of the dress was formfitting, which showed every ounce of the many servings of bread pudding I had consumed.
I knew this because one of the Wives told me. I usually never noticed or cared about those things. If I added something to my body, it would get bigger, that's math. I led an active lifestyle and I hadn't seen this food-my favorite-food in years. Stone me.
My explanation wasn't worth a lick to them. They sampled half the first round of passed apps, then hardly touched the buffet. I figured if I went up there repeatedly, filling my plate each time, some of the Wives would follow my lead. One of them took a portion of pudding right after me so I told her I liked her earrings (sapphire, probably real) and she thanked me politely.
She was about the only one who said a kind word to me all night, and the only one wearing any color. All the Wives were beautiful, of course, but they acted most unsavory. They were bland people, people who had anti-problems. Too much food to eat, too many dresses to wear, too many clients to keep track of.
Once I realized my breath was wasted in trying to get their attention, I didn't feel bad about eating and wandering about the house alone.
The men here didn't just talk over me, they spoke as if I wasn't there. In a one-on-one, they'd look to the wall behind me for a response. I was even mentioned by name during a conversation I thought was a part of. Only they didn't say my actual name. A suit had turned to his buddy on my left and asked if he had "met Sweetface yet" with a chuckle.
I felt my face got hot. He knew I hated that nickname. Was this what everyone in the office had been calling me? I didn't speak up when he said it, I didn't want them to think of me like that. I sank back into the crowd before I could find out why he had laughed.
I tried to stay out of conversations for the most part after that. I would sit with the Wives from time to time as their idle chatter was far more palatable than the men's. Some of them had very interesting careers too. One did interior design and another was an entomologist. A few of them studied literature in college and one of them had their Master's in Communication Ethics.
The person with the sapphire earrings told me she got a bronze medal in distance running in the 1984 Olympics. All of them had "credentials": things that they could put on their résumés that looked impressive or, more importantly now, things they needed to associate with their husbands.
They were about as close to Miss Politesse as they could be. No need to call out bullshit when you had her on speed dial. So I mostly just sipped on alcohol-free cocktails, grazing occasionally. By the end of the night I was exhausted. It had only been a few hours, but I felt weighed down by their conversations, which ranged anywhere from meaningless gossip to downright hate speech. It was pretty much guaranteed that whenever a group of them erupted in laughter, a slur had just been said.
He wasn't horrible but he wasn't good either. He let me introduce myself at first, but stopped when people would give us uneasy looks. He quit introducing me himself soon after that too, then peeled away to talk to the other grey men. It wasn't until the entomologist's husband made that comment that I realized why. If his partner was called Sweetface, who was this person by his side toting another name?
So people probably thought he was cheating on me, with me. I was already his clueless girlfriend and his secret mistress. Off to a great start.
I was very sleepy and full to bursting after walking around all night with an overflowing plate in my hand. I could tell that he was spent too as we didn't speak much on the car ride home, though he did ask me if I tried the food.
