I wrote this essay several years ago for my friend David at Leite’s Culinaria, who recently suggested I re-publish it here, since most of you likely haven’t seen it. Although re-edited and updated, the dream hasn’t changed all that much since then.
Once in a great while, I find myself sitting cross-legged on the floor of an ugly, unfurnished room. When I try to stand, I discover I can’t because my pajama bottoms are stuck to the dirty beige carpet beneath me. If I try to wriggle out of my pants, I might knock over the low, neatly stacked circle of empty cat food cans surrounding me like an aluminum fort. It’s obvious to me how easily I could destroy it, but it’s so beautifully constructed that can’t bring myself to do it. So there I sit, ass glued to the wall-to-wall, scanning the room for cats until I remember there aren't any.
There never are.
Then I do what I always do when I find myself in this situation: I wake up.
I don’t always wear pajamas. Once I was in sweatpants and another more recent version of the dream found me wearing olive green cargo shorts, but whatever my outfit, two things remain frustratingly consistent: the tidy bulwark of empty cat food tins and the conspicuous absence of cats. I really must get around to telling my shrink about this dream. He might enjoy deconstructing it. Not as much as my childhood recurring nightmares about faceless women with super-stretch arms and long black hair who only wear control-top pantyhose and try to tickle me to death, but still.
I don't need to pay anyone $90 an hour to tell me what it means. I’m a middle aged man, romantically unattached, without a long term savings plan, and mildly allergic to cats. You do the math.
I'm at that time of life when the average person evaluates how they’ve spent the first half of their existence and starts planning how they want to spend the second. For me, it's a time for asking important questions, like did I really need to spend that month in Morocco instead of investing the money in a retirement account? Was culinary school a better choice than grad school? Was it really a good idea to go to that art auction after drinking three martinis just because I was trying to impress a bipolar ex-con?
I'm faced not just with asking these uncomfortable questions, but with answering them with as much personal honestly as I can muster and my responses to the above are yes, yes, and no but that serigraph looks really great in my bedroom.
I understand that these dreams are telling me I'm afraid of ending my days poor and alone. Some part of my brain seems to be telling me that if I don't change something about the way I live my life, my nightmare will one day become my reality.
But that seems a bit extreme.
To be quite frank, I’m rather pleased with the way my life has been lived so far. Many, many mistakes have been made, but I have very few regrets. I’ve loved and been loved, collected an embarrassing wealth of friends, seen a respectable chunk of the world, and eaten my fair share of beautiful food.
I've seen London, I've seen France, I've even seen John Wayne without his underpants, but that’s a story for another time.
I’ve had a not-too-terrible life so far.
I wouldn't change a thing, really. Except for the part where I don't have much money. And the part where I dread having the same dream again, not so much out of fear but sheer boredom because the monotony of it lays bare everything I'm most afraid of with so much regularity as to make even my darkest fears seem dull.
Fortunately, I no longer regard this little nightmare as an accurate, inescapable preview of my life’s closing act. Instead, I regard it as a simple—if somewhat persistent—warning. More memento vivere than memento mori, if you want to get all Latin about it. I don't have to end my days broke, alone, and smelling strongly of 9 Lives® if I don't want to. Maybe the dream is telling me I should get my ass up off the floor and get out more. Perhaps it’s a warning that I’ll never find love or at least fond companionship unless I knock down the protective wall I managed to build up over time and just let more people in.
But I’ll tell you right now I hope life never finds me having to eat Friskies® Senior Diet Classic Paté Pacific Salmon Dinner in Sauce.
Although, I don’t have a problem with the idea of eating from the tins the cat food comes in. In fact, would probably serve as a good reminder to do so on occasion.
Think about it. What better way to tell your nightmares to fuck off than to turn the tables on them?
It’s far better to eat your fears than to let them eat you.
I can't think of a better form of therapy, and it doesn't cost anywhere near $90 an hour. Not when expensive ramekins are rendered unnecessary by an abundance of empty pet food tins, and labor-intensive, haute cuisine desserts can be replaced by the simple, affordable elegance of a recipe for the richest, most beautifully textured flan I’ve ever eaten. Because let's face it, if you're eating out of cat food cans, you need all the illusion of richness and beauty you can muster.
Flan in a Can
If for some awful reason I am reduced to eating cat food in real life, I may hold my nose as I spoon the bleak, fishy pâté into my mouth, but I’ll hold my head high as I resign myself to my fate. And I’ll still entertain, armed with this excellent recipe for flan, adapted from chef José Andrés, which I will proudly serve to my guests. If any one of them should ask me how on earth I came up with the idea to serve this dessert in cat food cans, I’ll simply tell them it must have come to me in a dream.
For all it's richness, flan happens to be a remarkably affordable dish to create, especially since some of its ingredients can be obtained for free from your nearest corporate-owned coffee house. Just arrive armed with a discarded cup from the same venue, make your way to the sugar and creamer island, fill your cup with half-and-half, grab as many sugar packets as you can stuff into your pockes, and then leave. Quickly.
Makes 4 six-ounce endings to a very Fancy Feast®. (It should be noted that Fancy Feast cans are far too dainty and were not used in the making of this dessert, which is a sentence I never thought I would write. Friskies™ cans are the gold standard, in my limited opinion.)
Ingredients:
• 1/4 cup plus 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons cold water
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• A hefty pinch salt
Preparation:
Open all four cans of cat food. Feed its contents to your cats. If you do not own any cats, feed it to your neighbors' cats. If your neighbors don’t own any cats, I really don’t know what to tell you.
Neatly slice the label along the back side of each can, choosing a loose place where no adhesive has been applied. To remove the labels, gently pull them away from the can. If they are adhered firmly, steam them off. Set the labels aside.
Wash the cans in hot, soapy water and let them soak overnight in a mild bleach solution to remove any hint of salmon or chicken flavoring. Let them air dry.
Heat your oven to 325°F.
Place your cans on a tray or sheet pan next to the stove, ready to accept the molten caramel you will soon pour into them.
In a small, heavy saucepan, combine 1/4 cup sugar and the cold water. Warm over medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves, tilting the pan to swirl the ingredients and brushing down the sides with water if necessary. Increase the heat to medium and let it cook, without tilting or otherwise touching the pan, until the sugar begins to caramelize. Lift the pan from the heat, tilting it, until the desired color has been attained. A golden color is excellent. (If the caramel reaches a rich brown hue, the caramel will taste slightly bitter, which some people enjoy. If it turns black, start over and pay more attention in the future.)
Immediately divvy the molten caramel among your 4 cat tins. Let them cool.
To make the custard, gently whisk 2 whole eggs and the remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a medium bowl. Add the half-and-half, cream, and vanilla, using gentle strokes of your whisk to avoid creating bubbles of air. Let sit for a few minutes until the sugar is fully dissolved, then pour through a fine-meshed strainer set over a pitcher (a 4-cup Pyrex measuring pitcher is ideal). Discard the solids, if any.
Place your cat food containers in a small roasting pan which has been lined with a kitchen towel to prevent the cans from moving. (If you lack proper kitchen towels, a clean pair of underwear will work just as nicely.) Place the roasting pan on a sheet pan, then divide the custard among your 4 repurposed tins, filling each until just below the ridge. Place the sheet pan in the oven and add enough hot water to the the roasting pan to reach slightly more than halfway up the sides of the tins. Cover tightly with foil, close the oven door and cook for 25 minutes. At this point, gently pull the pan out of the oven and rotate it 180°. Continue to cook for 20 to 25 minutes longer. You'll know the custards have set when they jiggle without rippling. Remove the pan from the oven, remove the aluminum foil, and let cool in the water bath for at least 10 minutes or until the cans are cool enough to touch. Let them cool completely before covering with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.
To serve, re-apply the cat food labels with a few discreet dabs of a glue stick so that they appear to be upside down. Gently slip the tip of a paring knife between the can and the edge of the flan and run it around the perimeter to loosen the flan. Place a small serving plate directly over each tin, invert the entire shebang, and then give the whole thing a short, sharp downward thrust. If you see a small amount of liquid caramel seeping from between the tin and the plate, that’s a very good thing and you are to be congratulated.
Place the desserts before your alarmed-but-curious guests, can and all. Leading by example, gently lift the can from the plate to reveal the flan inside. At this point you may pause to accept either the praise of your friends or their excuses for a hasty departure. If the latter, offer to divide the abandoned flan among the remaining diners.
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Oh, God, I love this idea! As a sufferer of similar recurring nightmares, I so want to do this the next time a far more financially comfortable friend invites me to one of those dinner parties where the guests are required to bring a side dish, salad, or dessert. I'll dress up like Gail Patrick in My Friend Godfrey.
funny. strange.funny.