Bela Farkas



Fine Dining


I sit on the corner of your kitchen bench, trying to hold back the break-up drips that wash down cheek.

You tell me that you need time.

I ask do you mean more than a seven minute microwave lean cuisine meal time. Or more than an hour and fifteen minute traditional roast beef with Yorkshire pudding time?

You tell me, there is nothing wrong, that there’s no other chef in the kitchen, and that everything is fine dining.

And two weeks later our recipe never changed, same mixture of chit and chat that brought the sweet and salty together, mixed with the right amount of zesty laughter that was poured down the phone to early hours of the morning.

But then you didn’t call, the menu was blank; the potatoes couldn’t cook without the heat.

I was not concerned.

I was not thinking that you were with another chef making fabulous new flavours, like coconut pan cakes with mango slices and lime syrup.

Because you wouldn’t do that, your apron was still in my closet and you can’t cook without an apron.

I just had to breathe in, everything was fine dining.

I didn’t wanna get all Gordon Ramsay stupid or Jamie Oliver righteous.

I just had to breathe in, everything was fine dining.

Then our chit-chat turned to the dregs you try to whack out of a sauce bottle until you realise there’s no more sauce left.

My brain knew you were baking in another chef’s kitchen, but my heart was buried in Martha Stewart recipes of denial.

Until someone told me they saw you holding another chefs hand, wearing a new apricot apron.

Apparently you didn’t want to take my order any more, you preferred to smash my eggs on the kitchen floor, leave me expecting sublime scrambled eggs then never return.

But that’s ok, I’ll never come to your restaurant again. I’ll stay home, watch cut throat kitchen and clean up the burnt pieces that you left in my frying-pan.




Serial celebrity name dropper Bela Farkas is a Canberra-based poet. A lot of his work has been heavily influenced by popular culture and current events. He has featured at Traverse Poetry Slam, Canberra’s BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!, West Word Poetry and as part of the ACT Australian Poetry Slam. He has been interviewed and performed poetry as part of the documentary series Behind the Words and on 2xx radio. He has also performed at the Corinbank, Canberra Fringe, National Folk and YouAreHere festivals as part of the Tragic Troubadours. He has been published in the Delinquent and has given speeches on poetry and performance at schools.
 
 
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