After an hour of brainstorming her job skills she complied:
1) smiling through anything, even cramping facial muscles or fingers
sizzling against the side of a cast-iron pan, 2) uttering fake, orgasmic
noises for the camera when she bites into food. It’s always too hot
to taste anything right after you take it off the burner. By the fourth
show she realized that by closing her eyes she could stymie the tears
from a singed tongue while amplifying the appearance of pleasure.
From this list she figures she might have a future as a phone sex
operator or a politician. She can’t do it any longer. Last week while
demonstrating the proper technique of pan searing foie gras, she swore
she heard a duck’s angry quacking. On her website, her favorite foods
are listed as sea scallops with cilantro gremolata and ginger-lime buerre
blanc and walnut almond cake with orange-pomegranate compote,
but most nights she eats Cocoa Puffs or Doritos. Giving up, she slices
a lemon in half and twists her fingers into its flesh to cover the smell
of garlic, a tip she told her viewers, but that never really eliminates the scent.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 15, Issue 3.
Carrie Conners is an Assistant Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY). In addition to Cider Press Review, her poetry has appeared in California Quarterly, Tar Wolf Review, DMQ Review, and RHINO.See all items about Carrie Conners