Sometimes when I have insomnia, I lie awake thinking about the best, the nicest, the most delicious meals I’ve had. I find this comforting. It helps me fall asleep.
This is where I admit to being more than a bit mean spirited.
It so happens that, once in awhile, my memories linger on meals that were the most memorable because they involved a certain measure of revenge. A side dish of cold, as it were.
There was, for example, the dinner in Hong Kong with the Famous Narcissist film director. He’d just had a huge success, and had blown up to the size of a Macy’s Easter parade balloon. He set the venue. One of the most expensive hotel restaurants in town. We were supposed to go Dutch, so I was already annoyed. Dinner conversation only added to my simmering rage. The Famous Narcissist Director used it to needle my filmmaker husband in a patronizing way, and to tell anecdotes about the FND’s recent meetings with the Great and the Good. The most annoying anecdote, as I recall, concerned his audience with the pope. This was a pope I particularly disliked, so that, combined with his assumption that I was there to provide an audience to a contest that only he seemed to be interested in, just made me sit there, plotting revenge.
I paid absolutely no attention to the food. I don’t remember what I ate. If you know me, you know how uncharacteristic this is. Astonishing. What I do remember was sizing him up, knowing his ego was my obvious point of attack.
I bided my time. Then came the bill. A huge one, of course. The waiter handed it to the FND, who was waving his hands around in a lordly fashion. Before he could start figuring how much we owed, I struck.
“No, no!” I protested. “You mustn’t pay! We have to split it. It’s so kind of you, so generous, but really . . .”
He paused. I could see the wheels turn. Of course he hadn’t planned on paying. But now he really had to. He couldn’t let us take charge, not even if it meant a savings of cash. He had to be ‘kind’. He had to be ‘generous’. He had to be ‘great’.
I still remember how I kicked my husband under the table as the FND pulled out his credit card and handed it over to the waiter. I had a seraphic grin on my face. And I slept terribly well that night.
But that wasn’t the best Meal of Revenge. The best one was a lunch, where I remember every single thing I ate and drank—since these were elements of the revenge in the first place.
This was after a meeting with a new commissioning editor at one of England’s TV stations. He’d just been promoted. His promotion was announced that week in the newspaper. He had a new corner office. The minute we got into the meeting, I saw there was no hope of getting a gig—the point had been to fill up his schedule with ‘important’ meetings, and display his even greater importance to the mob.
We were expected to be the admiring mob. Needless to say, I resented that. I resent people who waste my time. I resented him.
Then he took us out to lunch, and I had my most satisfying revenge.
Here was what I blithely ordered:
Tomato soup with a glass of sherry
A half Lobster Salad with a glass of Chablis
Chocolate mousse with a demitasse of espresso
Pretty much a perfect meal, all in all. Very well balanced. Not too much, not too little. Good choices on the wines. And the dessert. Restrained. Elegant. Pleasurable.
And the person who supposedly was ahead of me in the hierarchy, who was paying for the lunch on his business credit card, feasted on the following:
Spaghetti Bolognese
Diet Coke
He glared at me over the entire lunch. He hated me. He hated every minute of that lunch. I hated him. But I so loved every minute of that very same lunch.
I still savor it in my dreams.
Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold. Especially, I would argue, if the half a lobster on your salad comes chilled to perfection.