The Soufflé

     My son has graduated college and started his first real job.  Watching him adjust to adulthood reminds me of my own start.  Forgive me for the indulgence--I'll be back to boys next week.

     In the summer of 1981, I left home in pursuit of adulthood.  My father and I drove from our suburban Chicago sub-division to a third floor walk up studio in a not yet gentrified neighborhood of Washington, D.C.  When we pulled up, some Hari-Krishnas were singing outside the building next door.  My father, who for nearly 800 miles had seemed quite supportive, glanced at them and said, "Let's not tell your mother."
     I had found a job with a philanthropist who was renowned for his generosity but paid me nearly nothing.  My job was to review grant proposals from liberal organizations seeking support, and throw big fundraisers for candidates my boss supported.  Most nights I made dinner out of the brie and chablis we served.
     I was quite determined to be happy, which felt within my reach.  I spent most of my free time cultivating new friends.  I wrote little notes in advance of calling them, so I always sounded clever delivering the latest news, or inviting them to something wonderful.  Sometimes these potential friends were busy--going to visit their parents in Philadelphia--or sometimes I left a message, which went unreturned.  Some weekends I did not speak to another human being from the time I left work on Friday until I returned Monday morning.
     None of this information was recounted in my weekly phone calls home.  I did not want my loved ones to worry, as they surely would have, but more than that, I wanted them to think my life was wonderful, because they would have been insulted to find out I'd left them for anything less.
     I made sure to tell them I'd recently attended a performance at the Kennedy Center and sat in the President's box.  They were particularly impressed that the box had a private bathroom, and noted that I'd likely sat on the same toilet as Nancy Reagan.  I told them about Ted Kennedy's birthday party, and about the staff meeting I attended at my boss' home in Bermuda, and about the housekeeper who had once baked pies for President Roosevelt.  These stories were repeated at my father's water cooler and my mother's beauty shop to acquaintances who thought my parents had been crazy to let me go.
     I worked with a woman named Mary Beth who implied through her every word and deed that I knew nothing about fashion.  She accompanied me on business trips and pointed out the stylish women who wore spectator pumps that matched their periwinkle Nipon suits.  She referred me to someone to wax my legs.  She tried to gently help me through a variety of bad decisions regarding pants that made my butt look big and men who thought my butt looked just right.
    I thought that I might increase my circle of friends if I threw a party.  Not a keg of beer on the porch party, but a Washington young singles party--a brunch.  I would invite a variety of international friends who would be ever so interested in one another, and I would make my mother's famous blintz soufflé, which was quite simply love on a plate.  I would serve orange juice with champagne, and pots and pots of coffee, and my new acquaintances would pull my favorite Saul Bellow books off my shelves and we would discover how very much we had in common after all.
    These new acquaintances were working in congressional offices, or writing articles for left wing magazines, or were the sons of someone we had never heard of back in Chicago but who were quite important "inside the beltway."  They had gone to Harvard and Yale and Georgetown, and couldn't fathom why on earth I'd gone to the University of Illinois.  I was concerned that they were not easy to impress, so the night before the brunch I made sure I had everything ready.  This involved cleaning my tiny apartment and borrowing enough plates and forks.
     My mother was not a great cook, so the fact that she had mastered the blintz soufflé gave me courage.  The secret was that the blintzes (crepe pancakes wrapped around ricotta cheese) were store bought.  All I needed to do was arrange them in a Pyrex dish and cover them with an egg and sour cream mixture that when baked came out all puffy and lovely.
     I unfortunately woke up late the next morning, and just as I was getting started in the kitchen, the first guest arrived.  I quickly put the blintzes in the Pyrex and poured the mixture on top, briefly noting that the recipe called for the blintzes to be defrosted first, which I had neglected to do.  I didn't get too alarmed, but figured it would take a few extra minutes in the oven.
     The doorbell kept ringing and I buzzed up my friends who thought my apartment "had the most wonderful light," or "was in such an interesting neighborhood."  I introduced them all to each other noting that this one was a genius at direct mail, and that one was writing a fascinating article about world peace.  I was the perfect Washington hostess.
     Everyone was drinking quite a bit of champagne on empty stomachs.  After fifty minutes I went to retrieve my soufflé from the oven, anticipating the oohs and aahs of my friends.  I opened the oven, looking for the gorgeous casserole my mother regularly served, and was aghast to find pathetic lumpy blintzes in a sour cream soup.  The frozen blintzes had behaved like solid ice cubes and had rebuffed the overtures of the egg mixture, refusing to gel.
     I put the mess back in the oven and start to panic.  The only other food I had in my apartment was a box of macaroni and cheese and a couple of frozen dinners.  Guests began drifting into the kitchen asking if they could help.  I shooed everyone out and put my face in an oven mitt so that no one would see me cry.
     There would be no blintz soufflé.  But the lukewarm blintzes still had possibilities.  No one was expecting them to be all puffy and perfectly browned.  I removed the Pyrex from the oven, fished out the blintzes and rinsed them in the sink.  I arranged them on a plate and warmed them in the microwave. After covering them with strawberries, I presented them to a roomful of tipsy young adults who had never prepared anything more complicated than a Pop Tart.  They all exclaimed that they had no idea I could cook.
     I moved out of Washington soon after, in the hottest part of the summer.  My neighborhood liquor store, which had flourished under the business I had provided to them thanks to my party-throwing boss, delivered a magnum of champagne.
     I uncorked the champagne back home for the ones who loved me best, and we drank a toast to my return.  They expressed appropriate concern that a liquor store would miss me so.  I had never been so happy to be me.