Mont Blanc +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | 1 lb. chestnuts, shelled and peeled | | 1/2 lb. caster sugar | | 4 oz. heavy cream | | salt | | | | Cover chestnuts in water and simmer for about an hour until perfectly | | tender. Strain and mash chestnuts with the sugar and a pinch of salt. Put | | mixture through a ricer so it forms a cone-shaped mound on a large plate. | | Chill. Top with whipped cream just before serving. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The first time Aaron ever tasted my Mont Blanc was Christmas at my parents' house the year we met, and if you ask me, it's part of the reason we're still together today. In my family, celebration equals food and food equals celebration, according to very specific and incontrovertible laws. Christmas is Beef Wellington, roasted potatoes, and asparagus. It is brioche dough prepared the night before, the smell of sauteed mushrooms, and obscene amounts of melted butter. But if the Wellington and everything that goes with it is my mother's domain, dessert belongs entirely to me, and it is always creme caramel. Except for that time. Inspiration struck the week before, a faint memory stirred up in the grocery store in front of a huge display of chestnuts. I scooped up a bagful to bring home with me and the first words I said to my mother when I got there were, "Do you still have the recipe for that chestnut thing?" "Come here and give me a kiss," was her reply. "I got the eggs for your creme caramel," she added as she took out a folder from her recipe drawer. "I'll make them tomorrow." "Here. Mont Blanc." She held out the recipe, but her attention was drawn to the gap of the kitchen door, through which she could see Aaron, talking with my father in the foyer and no doubt wondering where I'd wandered off to. She turned back to face me. "Are you sure about this?" "Why wouldn't I be sure?" I put the bag of chestnuts onto the counter, gave her a peck on the cheek, and took the piece of paper. "Do you have caster sugar?" We haven't spent the holidays with my parents for years, not since Aaron and I moved into a house of our own with a kitchen whose counter space rivals the house I grew up in. My mother has even ceased to prepare feasts for the occasion, or any other occasion. No real reason, she says, she's just done with making elaborate meals. Now I'm the keeper of her cookbook, the heavy (and heavily abused) one with the cream-colored jacket and eroded spine, the one that held all the holiday traditions of my childhood between its covers. Tucked between pages 94 and 95, in the middle of the three-page recipe for Boeuf en Croute, or Beef Wellington, is the recipe that she handed me that Christmas for Mont Blanc, which is always, always dessert. The instructions are brief, written on a sheet of paper printed with the name Felicia McWilliams embossed at the top. I've never heard my parents mention Mrs. McWilliams, but from the unfussy block letters that she chose for her name, I imagine she was a practical kind of person. Most people might not think copying a recipe is the best use of their 100% cotton stationery, but I'm glad there was one person who felt that it was worth it. Each time I unfold it and the creases open up like hinges to reveal her neat handwriting, I send a silent thanks to Felicia, wherever she is. On Christmas Day Aaron splits logs out back and then prepares the fireplace while I score Xs on the bottom of each chestnut. He once remarked that we must be the only house not roasting our chestnuts over the fire, but this to me is the only thing that makes sense to do with them. Throw in boiling water till the shells split, scoop them out with a slotted spoon in order to peel them, and extract all traces of the slightly fuzzy skin that lies beneath, using a myriad of pointed tools to get between all the crevices. The act of chopping firewood, according to Aaron, the repetitive act puts him in a Zen-like state of mind, so he says. I can't say the same for when I'm shelling chestnuts. It's slow, meticulous work to reveal the delicate flesh within, but it's not just the scalding water or the splinters of shell under my fingernails keeping me from being present in the moment. When I served it that first time, I think my brother allowed that the Mont Blanc was an okay substitute for his favorite dessert. I remember more clearly the look on Aaron's face, and the exclamation that came from his lips after the first bite, somewhere between "Wow," and "Ohhh." Later that night Aaron pulled me out onto the porch and, making sure we were out of sight of the sliding door, he pulled me in for a kiss. He ran his tongue along my teeth as if licking a spoon clean. "You taste like dessert." I could hear his smile in the dark, and feel his warmth in the December night. "If your parents weren't here ...," he began, and finished that sentence two days later when we got back to my apartment, without using too many more words. As shelled chestnuts start to pile up in the bowl, I feel the hope, uncertainty, anticipation and desire of all those years ago build up inside me again, mixed with the knowledge of how everything has unfolded since, and a deep sense of optimism about what may still lie in store. It's as if every day of our lives together is happening all at once, and I'm creating it too, and even if it's not exactly easy I know it is going be incredible. After I've slipped the Mont Blanc into the refrigerator to cool, I begin rolling out the brioche dough and for the first time I find myself wondering about where this part of the tradition came from. Did my mother inherit it, the way I did? Or maybe there was a time, before I was born, when she decided to engage in this complex alchemy of butter and flour and eggs, of beef and mushrooms, full of expectation though unsure of how it would all turn out. And while Madeira sauce may not be an essential ingredient of Love, at least for two people in the world, that's what it tastes like. It seems strange that we've never talked about this before, my mother and I, but then I remember her look when she handed me the recipe and asked, "Are you sure?" At the time, I thought she was asking if I was really up to shelling a pound of chestnuts by hand, but of course she knew I could handle that part. The two of us lying in bed, skin to skin. Aaron is the hottest thing in the house -- on the planet -- in the whole of my universe. Our lips meet; he tastes like chestnuts, and a little bit of cream. Like love. "Did you like it?" I ask. "Always." I take his hand and place it on my belly that is rounded with more than just the weight of a good holiday meal. "Good," I say, "because we may not get a chance to have it again until this one is old enough to shell chestnuts." I see his left eyebrow twitch just the tiniest bit, and I laugh before I turn out the light.