Thomas is generally a gras-matinee Caniche geant, (a big poodle dog who likes to sleep in). On perfect days however, he’s been known to bound down the stairs ready for adventure. One winter morning, I woke up and saw snow, and the two of us took off out of the house, coattails flying, to the schoolyard across the street, which was covered in virgin snow. I, mouth open, stood catching snowflakes on my tongue. Thomas buried his nose into the powder as if it were water and galloped with perfect control to his utter satisfaction, creating a wake of snow to either side of that nose that seems meant for reaching deep into shopping bags.
Today is a perfect change-of-season Sunday morning whose beauty we both recognized. To honor it, we took off for an hour-and-a-half walk. He walks more and more off-leash. He stops at every corner. When he missed one, I simply said “unh-unh” and he stopped. To reinforce his good behavior, when I reach him, I walk in a circle around him, and pat him on the head. He follows me with his eyes, head pivoting. We stop, wait, look and listen, as though stopping and waiting were an adventure. Then I whisper, “okay” and we continue.
I stopped at my kitchen studio on the way home and gathered some eggs — from the refrigerator, not the hen house — a tomato, and half a cup of leftover radicchio sauce I had made for pasta the other day. I learned to make that sauce when I was in Venice a few years ago to teach cooking. I discovered it in a tiny caffe, with a tiny dining room at the back end of it. If you poked your head into the caffe and if you could even find it in the maze of alleys surrounding San Marco, you’d never notice that there was a narrow doorway leading into another room. The offerings written on a chalk board that day included lasagna with radicchio sauce. I was intrigued and ordered. As soon as I put it in my mouth, I knew it was exceptional and that I knew exactly how to make it. So I do.
Since Thomas and I had pumped up our exuberance with this walk, it seemed appropriate on this perfect Sunday to make poached eggs on toast. I broke one of the eggs as I dropped it into the poaching water. I was trying to decide if I could live with it. You know, the yolk breaks, thins out, over cooks. While I was trying to decide, I saw Thomas lying on the floor, one eye opened in interest with what I was up to. “Yukiah,” “Yreka,” “Eureka,” and “Sacra – mento!” I said to myself, Thomas will eat the broken egg. The light in his one open eye seemed to brighten.
He ambled to his large clay food bowl, lined inside in yellow glaze. He has two of them, one contains water, the other his food. Today he had his egg and kibble. If he had a memory, this would go down as a perfect day. But he doesn’t bother much with memory. He knows there will be other perfect days.
The bread I toasted came from the Pearl bakery, one of my three favorite sources of bread in Portland. I spooned the radicchio sauce into a skillet and set it to warm over the water as I brought it to a boil to poach the egg. The egg, poached perfectly runny, came from a chicken who yielded it up to a vendor who took it to the Saturday market, and from whom I purchased it. The tomato that was sliced generously was as fat as a softball and perfectly ripe, fleshy and abundant. I’ve vowed to eat as many tomatoes as I could in their short, short season. It was also seasoned with salt that did not come from this continent.
Thomas is happy in front of his yellow bowl. I’m happy keeping company with a white plate, now empty save for golden traces of the perfect meal. I think I need to take Thomas to the river so he can swim, perhaps for the last time this season.
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