He nods slowly, then disappears down the hallway. I hear the door to his editing room close, and I’m alone in the kitchen with a jar of tahini and about a million thoughts racing through my head.
I pull out my phone and start researching. Tahini is a staple in Middle Eastern cuisine, but it’s also incredibly versatile. It can be a main ingredient or a supporting player. The key is balancing its rich, nutty flavor with other elements so it doesn’t become overwhelming.
An idea starts forming. River has approximately seventeen different types of pasta in his cupboards—I’ve seen them. The man clearly loves pasta. So why not make a creamy tahini pasta?
I open his fridge and pantry, taking inventory. Cherry tomatoes. Fresh garlic. He has basil, parsley, and thyme. Lemons. Olive oil. And a billion choices of pasta, of course. I choose a linguine because the long strands will hold the sauce well.
For dessert... I smile to myself. Tahini brownies. Rich, fudgy chocolate brownies with swirls of tahini running through them. It’ll be unexpected, showing River that I can think outside the box.
I get to work, pulling out ingredients and lining them up on the counter. The pasta goes into a pot of salted boiling water. While that cooks, I’ll prep everything else.
I reach up to grab the flour from the top shelf—I’ll need it for dusting the brownie pan—and my finger catches the edge of the bag.
Time slows down.
The five-pound bag of flour tips forward, tumbles off the shelf, and explodes on the counter in a massive white cloud that billows up into my face.
“Oh, come on!” I sputter, waving my hands frantically, which only makes it worse. Flour puffs into the air, settling on every surface within a six-foot radius. The counter. The floor. My hair. My clothes.
I look down at myself. I’m completely covered in white powder, like I’ve been attacked by a very aggressive ghost.
Okay. Fine. This is fine. I can clean this up. It’s just flour.
I grab a dish towel and start wiping down the counter, trying to corral the flour into something manageable. But the towel just smears it around, creating this weird paste-like substance that’s somehow worse than the powder.
I abandon the towel and reach for paper towels instead. Better. Much better. I’m making actual progress now, gathering up handfuls of flour and dumping them into the trash.
That’s when I hear the sizzle.
I spin around just in time to see the pasta water boiling over, cascading down the sides of the pot and onto the stovetop with an angry hiss. Steam fills the air, and the water is spreading across the burner, pooling around the other pots I haven’t moved yet.
“No, no, no!” I lunge for the pot, turn down the heat, and grab it by the handle to move it off the burner.
Except I forget that the handle is metal. And has been sitting over the hot burner.
“Ow!” I drop the pot back onto the stove, shaking out my hand. The movement sends more pasta water sloshing over the side, sizzling and hissing.
I grab a potholder this time—like a smart person should have done in the first place—and successfully move the pot to a different burner. Crisis averted. Sort of.
I turn back to assess the damage. There’s flour everywhere, water all over the stovetop, and I’m pretty sure I have pasta water on my shoes now too. I check my hand. It hurts a little but it’s not a bad burn.
This is fine. Everything is fine. I can still salvage this.
I reach for the jar of tahini, planning to start on the sauce while I clean up the flour situation. But my hands are apparently coated in a thin layer of flour-paste from the counter, and the jar slips right through my fingers.
I watch in horror as it tumbles through the air, hits the edge of the counter, and tips over. The lid pops off, and thick, beige tahini starts oozing out onto the counter, mixing with flour to create this bizarre, gloppy mess. I grab it and set it upright before any more spills.
I just stand there for a second, staring at the disaster zone that is River’s pristine kitchen. This is it. This is how I die. Suffocated by my own incompetence in a cloud of flour and tahini.
“Hey, I heard a crash, is everything—” River appears in the kitchen doorway and stops dead. His eyes go wide as he takes in the scene. “Oh. Wow.”
“Don’t,” I warn, holding up one flour-covered hand. “Don’t say anything.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.” But his lips are twitching, fighting a smile.
“You’re smiling.”
“Am not.”
