Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own life, being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

Episode #40. Garden of Aprons 


For several years in my life, I had been deeply into cooking. My hours outside the office - where I met my patients for counseling sessions – were filled with practicing a variety of dish that I learned from the culinary class “Garden for Aprons”. Ms. Dolores was a kind and thoughtful instructor there who had always shown students smiley face should be the go-to ingredient that we all need for the class to begin with. Her signature apron is a solid navy blue on which a small white plumage was printed. For the three years that I had been learning how to cook from Ms. Dolores, she had always looked neat, fresh, and unchanged, wearing the same old apron. Since the first time I saw her in class, I knew that I’d become totally enamored with this lady as well as her one-of-a-kind recipes that nobody would trade for the world. ‘What if she’s not interested in me or even already taken?’ I kept asking myself over and over. Then I was like ‘Welp, so be it.’ But I could not get her out of my mind. 





I had been left alone for a quite a while since Demi took her own life and had to find something I could hold on to or someone that would cheerfully get me distracted or pumped up. Some shrink that I met at an international psychiatry symposium sensed my depression and tried to take me to some kind of a secret bunga bunga party held at a media tycoon’s mansion. As a proud psychiatrist, the doc thought he could do no wrong if he brought a lonely soul like me to such a flashy party full of women, wine, and the possibilities to connect with some bigwigs. I could tell he wasn’t a qualified shrink who could reach inside someone’s darkness and cautiously unlatch the gate of his frozen heart. I was in search of something healthy that I could willingly indulge in to walk away from my gloomy life. It was definitely not such kind of immoral party that would pull me from the deep mire. The night before I left Milan after the symposium, I went out to a small corner restaurant for dinner. Smothered escarole, crispy and sweet zucchini roll-ups, spaghetti with asparagus frittata….and crostata with poached apricots and pine nuts for dessert. Mmmmm…. The aroma, the taste, and the peaceful dim light inside of the hole-in-the-wall place created a perfect harmony to ease the fatigue and painful heart of this loner from America. Then came a sweet voice with a thick Italian accent near this seat of a lonely man deeply fascinated with the meal. “Are you enjoying my food, sir?” She was the chef of that small restaurant named ‘giardino di grembiuli’ (meaning Garden of Aprons in English). She was planning to wrap up her business as a restaurant owner and come to the US to teach Italian cuisine. I was more than happy to hear about her plans that night and felt like my darkest days of lassitude would soon be gone. Her tidy navy apron with a beautiful white plumage print caught my eyes. 





On the final day of Ms. Dolores’ cooking class here in the States, I finally got up the nerve to ask her out. She gave me her smile and said “You wonder what this white plumage printed on my apron, right? …… My late husband used the white plumage as a bookmark given by his dad. He passed a couple of years ago, and the plumage he used has been kept in my cherish box. Also as a print on my apron.” She did not say no when I asked her out, but the words about her apron told me so. That was the last day when I saw her beautiful smile, which is still the most important ingredient to bring to my kitchen. I made some chicken soup full of her smile and mine that night.





Expressions

  

   1.  plumage: bird’s feathers (can be used both as singular and plural noun)

   2.   So be it.: used to say that one is resigned to the fact that one can do nothing to change somethingIf they insist on going, so be it.

   3.  to get pumped up: to be filled with enthusiasm and excitement

   4.   a bunga bunga party: the international press to refer to former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's sex parties, which caused a major political scandal in Italy.

   5.   can do no wrong: used for saying that someone is considered by other people to be perfect, although you may not agree with this opinion. His parents think he can do no wrong.

   6.   bigwigs: an important person, especially in a particular sphere

  

   7.   lassitude: a state of physical or mental weariness; lack of energy

(Picture source: https://www.dreamstime.com/illustration/alone-dinner.html)