By Melanie Dale
@melanierdale

I stare laser beams into my phone. I don’t know if it will be a call or an email or a Hogwarts owl swooping down with news. Caw! 

We spend our lives waiting on results. 

What are our grades 

did we make the musical 

college admission 

pregnancy pee stick. 

Our days are a constant queue at the theme park of life and I’m at the top of the hill dangling before the big drop.

I’m ready for the results, whatever day they come. I already have a plan. Of course I have a plan. I always have a plan and the more out of control I feel the harder I try to pin down whatever I can.

Our good friends had given us the most expensive bottle of red wine I’ve ever had, and I tucked it in the back of the pantry. When the results come, whatever they are, I’m going to open the wine, Alex is going to sit on the barstool at the kitchen counter, and I’m going to stir risotto while we sip together, whether in celebration of good news or comfort for bad.

I think the stirring will be centering. Risotto takes time, and I want to take the time. I want to create something wonderful with my hands while my mind wraps around whatever the news is.

I refresh email for the thousandth time.

A new one pops up. Test results await … CLICK.

My eyes scan the medical jargon and hone in on the word I’m looking for: carcinoma. 

I’m not a doctor, but I know that word. It’s official. The murder grape I found in my boob is cancer. I feel like Theoden at the beginning of the Battle of Helm’s Deep, standing in the dark, growling into the rain, “So it begins.”

My doctor calls and we talk through the next steps. Breast surgeon, medical oncologist, radiation oncologist. I’ll need a binder and some labels, I think. But first, risotto and red.

I set the pan on the stove and hand Alex the wine to open. He takes a seat and pours the wine. I inhale the fragrance. It even smells fancy. My mouth waters.

Okay, I have cancer. A plan is forming. Surgery first. I like a first step. I’ve had lots of surgery. Surgery doesn’t scare me. 

We take a sip. Ohhh. It’s dry and perfect, and I couldn’t describe the layers to save my proletariat little life, but it’s the tastiest wine I’ve ever had.

Surgery doesn’t scare me but those other two steps, both of the ones with “oncology” in the name, those two sound more ominous. I know how to recover from surgery, and I know how it feels in my body, but I’ve never recovered from chemo and radiation. I’ve never had a port. These are mysterious and new, and their reputations aren’t stellar.

I drizzle olive oil in a big pan, turn the stove to medium, and dice an onion. I throw the onion in the pan to sizzle and pour the chicken stock in a medium-sized pot one burner over and set it on low. I move the onions around the pan until they turn translucent. 

Alex and I sip our wine and breathe in the smell of it and the smell of the onion cooking. There’s no greater smell than onion cooking in olive oil. I add in minced garlic. 

“Smells amazing,” Alex says.

“Yes,” I agree.

“So cancer,” he says.

“Boo-ya,” I agree, slicing mushrooms thinly.

I toss the mushrooms into the pan along with a pat of butter, give everything a stir, and hand a cheap bottle of white wine to Alex to open. The mushrooms are thirsty for some wine, too.

After they start to glisten, I pour in the wine, scraping the onions off the bottom. I breathe in. Risotto is aromatherapy and I need some therapy right then.

“I can’t do this treatment for you, but I can do the paperwork. Hand the bills to me, and don’t even think about them,” Alex says.

“Thank you,” I say.

“You’re gonna get through this,” he says.

That moment everything narrows to what really matters, and it’s this man who’s been with me for a quarter of a century. Raising teens is hard, special needs parenting is hard, and our two personalities are constantly crashing into each other. I’ve fantasized over the last couple years about leaving him to live in a cabin in the woods. Not with another man but just by myself without constantly tripping over his shoes or opinions.

Seems trivial now.

Everything drops away and it’s Cancer and I want my best friend, the one who shoved needles in my butt for fertility treatments and sees me at my worst and keeps choosing me over and over even when I’m not sure I’d even choose myself.

I pour the arborio rice into the pan and it makes a satisfying swishy sound as it cascades down. 

“In sickness and in health,” our vows said, and I wonder if I’m still under warranty, because I’ve sure had a lot of sickness, and I wouldn’t blame him for having me towed away. What a hassle I’ve been.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too,” I say, tossing the rice with the mushrooms and onions and oil and butter to coat it.

We sip, and then I pull up a barstool to the stove. It’s time to start stirring.

When the kids are around, I want fast and easy food. I want to feed these hungry caterpillars as quickly as possible most nights. Risotto for lunch feels luxurious, for someone with time to kill.

For someone with cancer to kill. I’m thinking they can just scoop it out with a melon baller, and I can move on with my life. It’s not that simple. It’s about to get much more complicated, but I don’t know that yet.

I ladle a scoop of chicken stock from the pot into the pan with the rice. Sizzle.

I stir, scraping the goodies off the bottom of the pan. The first ladleful absorbs quickly, and I scoop another. Sizzle. The rice is thirsty and drinks it up as I stir, making figure eights in the pan with my spoonula. 

I ladle again and this one takes longer. I stir, grab another sip of wine, and we do this, me stirring, Alex sitting there, his presence reassuring. He’s with me. We talk about the next few months, about the kids, about taking things off my plate as I get out two bowls.

When the risotto has drunk up all the chicken stock, I stir in parmesan cheese, take it off the heat, and head to the back patio for parsley. I run my hand through its friendly, fragrant little leaves and smell my fingers. So fresh. I step back inside and the smell of the risotto hits me with warmth and security.

I chop the parsley, spoon the risotto into the bowls, and add fresh parmesan and parsley. I top off our glasses.

We take our wine and steaming bowls to the table and sit. Alex takes a bite and moans with pleasure. This feels decadent, this middle of the day pause. I’ll remember it forever, the day we made something beautiful together out of horrible news.

Life has gotten so complicated and yet in this tiny moment, it’s simple. It’s love and wine and slow cooking. The risotto makes us feel like I’m going to be okay. How can the world be all bad when there’s risotto in it? When there’s special wine from dear friends? When we have each other, after all this time, by the grace of God.

Melanie’s Mushroom Risotto

If you read all that and are wondering how much of everything I used, here you go. You can make much fancier risotto, but I tend to use the most basic ingredients that I always have on hand, that way risotto can strike at any time!

Ingredients

6 cups chicken stock, or vegetable stock for vegetarian
A generous swirl of olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound of mushrooms, thinly sliced (I’m a simple girl and like button mushrooms, but you can put fancy ones in if you’re bougie like that.)
2 tablespoons butter
1 ½ cups arborio rice
½ cup dry white wine (something tasty enough to pour yourself a glass of while you’re cooking)
1 cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Fresh parsley

You’ll need one pan where the magic happens, and one pot to keep the chicken stock warm. Cold chicken stock is like throwing ice cubes in your bathtub when you’re trying to relax, so jarring and detrimental to your risotto. You want them to feel cozy at a consistent temperature to soak up all the moisture, so warm that stock.

Photo by Jennifer Floyd.