Conversations About Top Chef after Desireé Dallagiacomo
Conversations about Top Chef with Tom, my therapist.

So, they take these fifteen cooks, right?
and they put them together in a kitchen
and tell them to make a six-course meal
out of vending machine snacks.

And the judges say ridiculous shit like,
"I wonder if perhaps the bugles would have made for
a better taste contrast than the Cheetos"

And then everyone says
"I am not a pastry chef."

And then everyone cooks scallops
like all the time, Tom
they are always cooking scallops

And then they have to like,
make a wedding cake out of taco shells
and one time when my brother was like four years old,
he went into the front yard
and he sprinkled a packet of taco shell seasoning onto the soil there
and waiting for the taco shells to grow

And my mom told him
"Buddy there's some things that just don't grow here."

But the next morning, she woke at like 5 A.M. to go into the front yard and push six taco shells into the soft dirt there
And when he saw them he said
"I knew. I knew that they would grow here if only we let them."

And we did not have a funeral.
Just a barbecue
Just five jumbo bags of Doritos,
and what was left of our family

And we did not bury his body, Tom,
but if we had I know
nothing would have grown there.

You would not believe the amount
of salt that most things need, Tom

Would not believe how hot you
would have to get a panto get a good sear on
A week after he died,
we found my brothers Top Chef audition tape
and it was terrible.

He's holding a blood orange in his left hand
as he cuts it with his right

And we all watch breathless,
not knowing where the knife would end up

And I hate when people talk about addiction
without talking about hunger

When they talk about it like a blade
like it doesn't come for you-
like it doesn't come for your empty belly

With soft in both its hand
like it isn't playing in the background of your best stories
Tom, I will never again
not know the sound of my mother breaking

So I chew on tinfoil and I call it a meal
I chew on the gristle on the last time we talked on the phone

And I do not think I will ever be ready to swallow it, Tom
Tell me again about the part where grief is not my name

I will tell you my parents
have not kissed on the lips since the 90's

I will tell you there is so much
I did not say out of respect for the living

I will tell you one of the first rules of working in the kitchen
is you never try and catch a falling knife

But, lord, if we didn't try anyhow, lord, if we aren't a family of good intention?

And cut off hands.