Talking “Cashew Chicken…with a Twist”

Welcome to the intro video and an excerpt from the second post of my weekly serial, “Sketches from the Café Confictura.” If you’d like to share a comment, please use the comment option at the end of this excerpt. To follow the mystery of Applewood, and get recipes from Mrs. Creaverton, writing advice from Roscoe Belesprit, and fashion tips from the Fastionista, please visit www.ClarissaJeanne.com for new posts every Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. EST.

So, the 11/5 quake left Beech Street with shards of road sticking up like a punk rocker’s over-gelled hair. I’m not sure if it’s because the street, home to Applewood’s business center, is impassable, or if the town’s residents are just suffering from some form of fatigue, but since the quake our nightlife is little more than crickets. Used to be, come Saturday night you could find folks out at arthouse screenings, antique shows, book readings. We had live music everywhere; we had dances. Now all we have is karaoke night at the Sloshed Guzzler, which, as you can probably guess from the name, is the type of bar with sticky floors and that stale beer smell that stays with you for the rest of your life. Sort of like if I say, “high school biology lab where you had to dissect a frog” you can still smell the formaldehyde.

A couple weeks ago, Mrs. Creaverton started bustling around the Café Confictura, brainstorming ideas about how to breathe a little life back into Saturdays. Partly, I’m sure, she’s feeling amped since she’s at the start of this new diet makeover/lifestyle change, whatever you want to call it. Partly, she’s ever the businesswoman, and she knows that “Happy Fun Night sponsored by Café Confictura” is a nice bit of advertising for her. But mostly, I think, she wants to help folks. Those whose minds were affected somehow by the quake have been automatons in their own lives. No joy, no ambition. They roll through one day after the last, numb and foggy, where once they shone. I miss how they brightened the café, the town. Most of us who haven’t been affected keep trying to reach them, calling their names in whatever dark wood has swallowed them, hoping to catch a glimpse of their light. And Mrs. C’s contribution right now is to turn quiet Saturday night on its ear.

She kicked her party-planning mode into high gear and got the county Historic and Tourism Commission to donate an evening in this barn that is Applewood’s contribution to the long list of places George Washington supposedly slept. “Dancin’ through the Decades” was Mrs. C’s idea, a town dance designed for everyone to stop sitting on their booties and start shaking them from the Charleston to the Hustle to the Time Warp to the Bus Stop. Within a few days the coffee wasn’t the only thing causing a buzz at the café, and my guess is that with so many people excited about the idea we would’ve had a decent turnout no matter what. But Mrs. C got it in her head to pester the entertainment reporter from the Applewood Timber for a story, for exposure. Mark Raynid is his name, and she finally got him to come into the café for an interview this past Friday, the day before the dance.

Mark sort of looks like a stick figure someone might doodle on a Sloshed Guzzler napkin. His limbs are rubbery, his hair is scant. He and Mrs. Creaverton were at one of the front tables next to mine, finishing up her interview and lattes, when in walked Roscoe Belesprit followed by a man I’d never met.

Roscoe’s trying to grow his hair out. When he was younger--I’ve seen a picture--it was thick, strikingly beautifully black against his brown skin. It’s thinner now, and mostly gray, and I’m hoping he doesn’t cut it anytime soon. The man following him was closer to my age, late thirties I guessed, Mediterranean white, slender but with a good build. He wore a red quilted baseball cap made of that shiny puffer jacket material.

Roscoe went over to Mrs. C first. If one day he were to walk into the café to find a time machine has landed with Hemingway waiting to ask Roscoe’s advice on dialogue, our retired English professor would go over to Mrs. C first. “Phillipa,” he said, the Boston Brahmin wafting smooth as smoke from his lips, “lovely as always to see you.”

--To read the rest of the post, please click here to go to www.ClarissaJeanne.com/cashew_chicken_with_a_twist.html, and then share your comments below--

Thoughts on "Cashew Chicken...with a Twist"? Share them below: