Page 175 - A Little Life: A Novel

lamest of American culinary traditions. Harold always began with big
ambitions: their first Thanksgiving together, nine years ago, when he was in
his second year of law school, Harold had announced he was going to make

duck à l’orange, with kumquats standing in for the oranges.
But when he arrived at Harold’s house with the walnut cake he’d baked
the night before, Julia was standing alone in the doorway to greet him.
“Don’t mention the duck,” she whispered as she kissed him hello. In the
kitchen, a harassed-looking Harold was lifting a large turkey out of the
oven.
“Don’t say a word,” Harold warned him.

“What would I say?” he asked.
This year, Harold asked how he felt about trout. “Trout stuffed with other
stuff,” he added.
“I like trout,” he’d answered, cautiously. “But you know, Harold, I
actually like turkey.” They had a variation on this conversation every year,
with Harold proposing various animals and proteins—steamed black-footed

Chinese chicken, filet mignon, tofu with wood ear fungus, smoked
whitefish salad on homemade rye—as turkey improvements.
“No one likes turkey, Jude,” Harold said, impatiently. “I know what
you’re doing. Don’t insult me by pretending you do because you don’t think
I’m actually capable of making anything else. We’re having trout, and that’s
it. Also, can you make that cake you made last year? I think it’d go well
with this wine I got. Just send me a list of what you need me to get.”

The perplexing thing, he always thought, was that in general, Harold
wasn’t that interested in food (or wine). In fact, he had terrible taste, and
was often taking him to restaurants that were overpriced yet mediocre,
where Harold would happily devour dull plates of blackened meat and
unimaginative sides of gloppy pasta. He and Julia (who also had little
interest in food) discussed Harold’s strange fixation every year: Harold had

numerous obsessions, some of them inexplicable, but this one seemed
particularly so, and more so for its endurance.
Willem thought that Harold’s Thanksgiving quest had begun partly as
shtick, but over the years, it had morphed into something more serious, and
now he was truly unable to stop himself, even as he knew he’d never
succeed.
“But you know,” Willem said, “it’s really all about you.”

“What do you mean?” he’d asked.