Dinner with Edward

There is somewhere someone who will feel lucky knowing you. And if lucky enough, loving you.”

sometimes I would go to the best restaurant I knew about, and order dishes and good wines as if I were a guest of myself, to be treated with infinite courtesy.”

His assertions never veered too far from certain fundamental themes—he spoke about recognizing “the stranger in all of us” and achieving what he liked to call “a resting place of the soul,” by which I now realize he meant self-­assurance and being happy in your own skin. Or as he put it, “a place in your head where you are at peace with your life, with your decisions.”

“How I ever got you is beyond belief. So don’t wake me up at this date—just let me go on thinking that I’m special enough to deserve you!”

In hindsight, I realize he was forcing me to deconstruct my own life, to cut it back to the bone and examine the entrails, no matter how messy that proved to be

Cooking was a passion and sometimes a serious art form, to be shared with a select few

He was teaching me the art of patience, the luxury of slowing down and taking the time to think through everything I did

“It’s just cooking, darling,” he said, when I asked why he didn’t use cookbooks. “I don’t ever think of what I’m doing in terms of recipes. I just don’t want to bother looking at recipes. To me, that’s not cooking—being tied to a piece of paper.”

I don’t know if the temptation of a good meal did it for me, or if I was just so lonely that even the prospect of spending time with a depressed nonagenarian seemed appealing.

“a place in your head where you are at peace with your life, with your decisions.”