Clare: Henry holds up an onion and looks at me gravely and says, “This . . is an onion.”

I nod. “Yes. I’ve read about them.”

Henry has decided to teach me to cook.

Henry: Lourdes brings small plates of exquisitely arranged antipasti: transparent prosciutto with pale yellow melon, mussels that are mild and smoky, slender strips of carrot and beet that taste of fennel and olive oil. We eat Nell’s beautiful rare tuna, braised with a sauce of tomatoes, apples and basil. We eat small salads full of radicchio and orange peppers and we eat little brown olives that remind me of a meal I ate with my mother in a hotel in Athens when I was very young. We drink Sauvignon Blanc, toasting each other repeatedly. (”To olives!” “To baby-sitters!” “To Nell!”). Nell emerges from the kitchen carrying a small flat white cake that blazes with candles. Clare, Nell, and Lourdes sing “Happy Birthday” to me. I made a wish and blow out all the candles in one breath. “That means you’ll get your wish,” says Nell, but mine is not a wish that can be granted.

Clare: “But don’t you think that it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”

Clare: “Yes, I do.”

An array of cold (yet sensual) dishes:

Vichyssoise / Poached Salmon, Served Cold with Citrus Mayonnaise / Homemade White Wine Fish Stock / Grilled Asparagus with Rosemary / Mango Ice Cream with Raspberry Coulis

“We begin eating, with enthusiasm. The risotto is slippery and mild, the squash is sweet, the chicken is swimming in butter. It makes me want to cry, it’s so good.” — from The Time Traveler’s Wife

According to Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham, cooking is one of the things that makes us human. I would argue another important thing on that list is storytelling. Perhaps this is why good stories so often involve food.

Today is the debut of Novel Dishes, a new occasional series on Fiction Writers Review.