Chicken Tetrazzini

Notes on the empty seat at the dinner table.

In the immediate days following my dad’s death,¹ I consumed more white meat chicken than I have in my entire adult life. Probably. Did you know that there are limitless iterations of baked chicken and noodles? Two of the heavy hitters currently in my childhood home’s freezer include: Huntington Chicken (macaroni noodles and chicken breast in Velveeta sauce topped with bread crumbs) and Chicken Tetrazzini (spaghetti and chicken baked in cream of mushroom soup and buried in a heap of melted parmesan cheese). And that’s in addition to the chicken pot pies, chicken fajitas, and Mexican corn chowder (with chicken). I had to inventory both the upstairs and downstairs freezers just to get an accurate estimate on how much food we stockpiled in the course of a week. By my calculations: there is enough chicken casserole that my mom, my brother, and I could eat two servings a day for three weeks straight, and there’d still be some left over.

I do not want to sound ungrateful. I am the opposite. I am grateful for the certainty of knowing where my next meal is coming from (the basement freezer). I am grateful to be surrounded by people who understand the true meaning of comfort food (butter and simple carbohydrates). I am grateful for the two 8-foot-long tables of potato and jello salads at the post-funeral service luncheon. No one rallies around a grieving family quite like Midwestern church ladies. While grappling with the loss of my father seems insurmountable, I am fortunate that I’ve not yet lost my appetite.

People tell you that when a parent dies, it does not feel real. I have found this to be true. In fact, I have found this to be so true that upon seeing my dad’s body for the first time in the funeral home, I half-expected him to open his eyes and crack a joke about why we were all standing around watching him sleep. In my mind he was reprimanding us… Don’t you all have anything better to do?, I imagined him saying. Shortly after, I stood in my parents’ wardrobe, incredulously broken-hearted, trying to process the sudden conclusion to the decades-worth of wear and tear—his sweaters and suit jackets; his ball caps and beanies; his neatly pressed slacks and those striped purple jorts; dozens of zip-up hoodies with used Kleenexes still crumpled in the pockets; all of the sleeves and socks lying dormant until my mom can stomach a half-empty closet. It was then, while choosing the outfit my dad would wear to his own funeral, that I consciously felt his absence for the first time.

Over the next several days, I found it easier to put off processing my grief by diving head first into funeral planning: arranging the venue, the menu, the seating.² Additionally, spending every second of every day with different combinations of ~30 extended family members helped me think about other, less depressing, things, like how to retain my hard-earned title of “Funniest Cousin.” I hope this doesn’t sound crass, but standing in a receiving line solemnly and tactfully responding to “So sorry for your loss,” and “He was such a wonderful man,” for over two hours considerably numbs the senses. Oh, and how could I forget the “We can’t believe he’s gone.” Yeah, me neither. Better to just deal with it later.

The following week, after the ~30 members of our extended family had departed, I was once again confronted with the reality of my dad’s death when our newfound Leaflet trio sat around the dinner table.

Some of my fondest childhood memories occurred while seated to the right of my dad at our kitchen table (literally sitting at the right hand of my father),³ or across from him in a restaurant booth, to ensure that Paxton and I were sitting catty-corner, thereby minimizing the possibility of us getting into an altercation. Notably, there was the incident at El Torero Mexican restaurant. In an effort to control his misbehaving children and communicate his anger, he slammed his fist on the table, accidentally catapulting a fork into the air… and into his forehead. This four-pronged approach to discipline backfired, and the three of us burst out laughing (my mom to the point of tears), much to his chagrin.

My dad was my partner in culinary crime. I’m sure he would not take issue with being described as a gastronomical bad boy. He and the kitchen were a powerful duo. Taking cues from one of his most beloved jazz musicians, Herbie Hancock, Dad’s kitchen routines were big and bold and unapologetic. You were going to eat whatever concoction he made, and you were going to like it. He taught me that there’s 100 ways to steam a vegetable. He taught me that sometimes it’s worth waiting until 10:00 p.m. to eat dinner “as they do in Spain,” especially when he just spent hours tending to some discounted pork ribs at his 22-inch Weber Charcoal Grill, ensuring the perfect smoke-to-char ratio. He taught me that recipes were mere suggestions, and that it’s better when the secret ingredient is a condiment that’s been in the back of the fridge for an indeterminate number of years. He taught me how to use chopsticks with the most valuable resource at his disposal: the Kung Fu Panda DVD’s special feature tutorial (linked here).

That tutorial—and the memory of sitting on the basement sectional with my dad, leaning over a TV tray trying to scoop rice into our mouths—abruptly resurfaced to the forefront of my mind on our first evening alone as a family of three. After dropping off my cousin, Hannah, at the airport, my mom, my brother, and I chased a viewing of Will Arnett’s “Is This Thing On?” with some dinner at Pho Cao. I was excited to indulge in one of my all time favorite comfort foods, and to see if the Wichita Vietnamese food scene was as good as I remembered. I got the Combo #1 with rare steak, brisket, tripe, and a meatball, as did my brother. My mom opted out of the tripe. We also ordered summer rolls and crab rangoons. After placing our order, I asked our server if we could get some chopsticks for the table. (I suppose the general population of Wichita is not expected to know how to use chopsticks, so they are only available upon request.) She brought us three pairs, but only I reached for them. My dad and I loved to hold our practiced dexterity over my mom and brother’s heads, bragging that our chopstick use made us more evolved, cultured diners. Without my urbane culinary counterpart sitting next to me, I felt lopsided. The order of crab rangoons came with four, the two shrimp summer rolls were halved, and there sat the empty fourth chair, riddled with vacancy.

A couple days later, we treated ourselves to dinner at First Mile Kitchen, where my mom had a $100 gift card. The lights were dim and architectural lines organic. Vinyl records spun, and a giant disco ball hung behind the bar. We all agreed that Dad would’ve loved the Scandinavian-inspired ambiance. The open fire hearth was essentially part of the dining room, separated only by a large kitchen island. Starting with cocktails (a smoky old fashioned for Paxton, an apple rum punch for my mom, and a cucumber gin and citrus highball for me), we cheers-ed “Skål” to Dad, and I silently mourned the fact that I only got to be an adult alongside my father for three short years. He was supposed to be here cheers-ing with us.

The menu at FMK (an unfortunate acronym) boasts all locally sourced ingredients, while playing up some classic American steakhouse favorites, like a wedge salad and the lobster deviled eggs. Reflecting back on it now… I am unsure how they locally sourced lobster. They were still delicious. Even Paxton, acclaimed deviled egg critic (once indulging in a dozen in one sitting), gave them his stamp of approval. We also ordered the toasted sourdough with whipped butter and the harvest kale salad. I thought the bread could’ve been toastier, and I found the salad to be too unwieldy. Salads should be uniformly chopped, unless otherwise stated. I should not have to open my mouth past the width of a golf ball in order to bite the entire leaf of kale. For our entrees, my mom and I shared the 8oz flat iron steak frites, and Paxton got the steak au poivre stroganoff. We sat conversing over our red meat about what Dad would think, what he would’ve ordered, and whether or not he’d ask our server where she was from. I kept looking up from my dinner expecting him to be there, seated with his arms folded across his chest, hands tucked into the armpits, thumbs out, deeply engrossed in my brother’s impassioned rant about why tipping should be a mandated expense when dining out.

It has been bittersweet learning how to operate as a new family unit. All things considered, we are functioning at a very high level. Our day-to-day has been generally productive, and we have fallen into a comfortable routine of balancing undesirable tasks (writing thank you notes and putting away Christmas decorations) with leisure activities (watching The Muppet Movie and reheating leftovers, Chicken Tetrazzini or otherwise). Perhaps because we are so well nourished, the ever-so-daunting döstädning (Swedish Death Cleaning) seems much more manageable.

Though I am still unsure of “how to grieve,” my sadness is manifested as sharing in the joy of his memory. I’ve been reliving my childhood through the stories of church members who watched him raise me, and living vicariously through the stories of his life as a twenty-something bouncing between Texas and Kansas. More specifically, when he taught some teenage boys in his youth group how to pick up women in the next car over. At the visitation, parents of my former basketball teammate even brought the “Get out of Hell Free!” card he gave them after they got a bit too rowdy at one game in particular (Andale, 2018). We’ve indulged in our grief, while rejoicing in love. My dear friend, Meg, shared with me a quote that reads, “Your heart has a memory of its own.” Were I to lose my father’s physical mementos or forget these memories, God forbid, the love I have for him, and he for me, will always remain nestled within my heart strings. During this time of unimaginable and overwhelming sorrow, we are fortunate that we’ve never lost our capacity to laugh and move and sing and story-tell and rest and love and eat (Chicken Tetrazzini).

Grief, you fickle bastard. I never knew you could be so good.

1. My dad died on January 2nd. I apologize, dear reader, if this is the first time you are hearing about it.

2. Hamilton reference.

3. I am obligated to make as many biblical references as possible now.