THE MOON GARDEN COOKBOOK
By Laurel Winter

* * * *

SUSAN’S SPOON MOVED more slowly as she stirred the sour cream into the Chicken Paprika. When her eye had fallen on the recipe in her Fanny Farmer cookbook, Chicken Paprika had seemed an archetypal meal: savory, meaty, spiced to perfection. Now, although the scent hadn’t changed, the hands of the red-framed clock above the stove reminded her that it was almost time to serve dinner. No more chopping of tomato and onion. No more lazy spoon spirals. No more fall of spices. She would have to arrange her creation on a bed of wide noodles on a white oval platter her grandmother had given her, and place it in the center of the scraped, marker-stained, fake-wood Formica table and subject it to the opinions of her family. 

She sighed and turned off the gas flame. Please, she thought to herself, wiping fragrant steam and an anticipatory tear or two from her forehead and cheeks, just let them be polite about it for once — without any reminding. Tonight especially would be nice, because her PMS was at its peak. 

“Dinner,” she called toward the family room, where Bob and the kids were watching a “Scarecrow & Mrs. King” rerun. 

Her wish was not granted. “What is that?” screeched Amy. “I wouldn’t eat that if you gave me a hundred dollars.” 

Darryl’s “Major gross!” was no less emphatic. 

Tommy settled for “Yuck.” 

“We don’t say that,” hissed Susan. “We say, ‘I don’t care for it,’ or ‘No, thank you,’ or, ‘Gee, Mom, I’m not very hungry.” She punctuated her sentences by jabbing the serving spoon into the food on the platter and slopping it onto her plate. Drops of paprika-tinged sauce spattered her shirt. 

She passed the platter toward Bob, who gave a weak grin and dished himself about a quarter cup. “Thanks, honey,” he said. “Looks interesting.” He nibbled some from the end of his fork. “Only problem is, I had a late lunch, and . . . .” 

“Can I make myself a peanut butter sandwich?” asked Tommy. Amy poked him — too late — with a skinny elbow. 

Susan’s anger simmered, bubbled, steamed. 

“Leave the table,” said Susan, her voice low and deadly. “All of you. I’m tired of your complaints. I’m tired of fixing macaroni and cheese and frozen fish sticks and corn dogs. Just go to McDonald’s or something.” 

She could have been a cobra surveying petrified chickens. No one moved. “Get out of here,” she shrieked, pounding her fist on the table and knocking over her water glass. 

They scrammed. Before Susan’s spilled water could reach the edge of the table and trickle into her lap, the only evidence of family was the sound of the car leaving the driveway. 

She didn’t even put the encrusted pan in the sink to soak. Tears ran down her cheeks and into her mouth, tainting each swallow with salt water. When she couldn’t stand another bite — or another look at her family’s four gleaming plates staring at her like eyes, she pushed her chair back and headed somewhere, anywhere, banging the door behind her. 

The May air made her hug herself. She strode down the sidewalk, turning left and right at random, crossing in the middle of the block, cutting through alleys. By the time her walk had mellowed into a stroll, she was a goodly ways from home in God knew what direction. The exertion made the temperature perfect. If she just let her feet move, she could pretend that she didn’t have PMS and a family of picky eaters —rude, picky eaters — and dirty dishes waiting. 

She walked past a garage sale. 

A garage sale? On a Tuesday evening? Even though Susan didn’t “do” garage sales — she detested them, really — she reversed direction. 

The narrow, cracked driveway led to a sagging detached single garage almost buried in morning glories, Boston ivy, and two or three other types of vines that Susan didn’t recognize. In an ancient lawn chair with half the webbing drooping underneath sat a woman with steel-gray hair that looked as if it were trying to fly away, despite the fact that there was no wind. 

Susan tried to adopt the casual “look things over and ignore the fact that you’re standing in the midst of a stranger’s possessions” attitude of garage sale patrons everywhere. She failed miserably. “Hello,” she said to the woman. “Why are you having a garage sale in the evening? On Tuesday?” 

The woman looked up from the solitaire game she had laid out on a rickety TV tray. “Can’t stand to get up early,” she said. “Just having my breakfast now.” 

Susan gulped. Also on the TV tray was a mug of beer with an egg floating in it. “Oh,” she said. 

The woman eyed her. “Can’t stand crowds, either. That’s why I never hold my sales on weekends.” She took a long swig of beer; the egg slid down her throat. 

“Ah,” she said. “You’ve got a dab of paprika sauce right by your mouth.” 

Susan automatically put her tongue out and started swiping it around. 

“Other side,” said the woman. “Lower. Got it.” She bent back to her solitaire, leaving Susan to wonder how someone could have distinguished paprika sauce at five paces in the graying light of the May evening. 

“I’ll just look around,” she said. The woman grunted. 

The garage was filled with cracked ice cube trays, handleless shovels, cups filled with old toothbrushes, half a telephone, Yale locks with broken keys protruding, and left shoes. Of the few garage sales Susan had actually attended, this one had the highest percentage of trash and the lowest percentage of treasures. And everything was drastically overpriced. 

A flamingo pink wastebasket with a great rift down one side was marked five dollars. A sweater that must have nourished generations of moths hung on a rusty hanger: five dollars. Practically everything was five dollars. Susan shook her head. She was about to leave, when she saw, in the dimmest corner of the garage, a rack of books. 

She squinted at them, trying to make out their titles. “Do you have a light?” she called. 

The old woman rose from the tattered webbing of her lawn chair and began rummaging in a cardboard box. “Here,” she said, holding out a dented metal flashlight. 

Susan hurried toward her. “Thank you,” she said. 

“Five dollars,” said the woman, clutching the flashlight to her flat bosom. 

“I don’t want to buy it; I just —” Susan raised her eyebrows and began searching her pockets. Lint in the left. In the right, way down at the bottom, was a scrunched, washed, faded five-dollar bill. “Here,” she said. 

The woman snatched the money and handed her the flashlight. It gave off a lopsided, watery circle of light. She made her way back to the books. 

A hardback edition of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Three Harlequin romances. Volume M from the Encyclopedia Americana. A novelization of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Journal of a Plague Year. Bring ‘Em Back Alive Frank Buck and The Best Baby Name Book. A scorched copy of Fahrenheit 451. And a thin gray volume with spidery silver letters on the spine. Susan picked it up. The Moon Garden Cookbook, she read. Shivers ran down her spine. She looked for a price. Nothing. She grabbed Finnegans Wake off the shelf. None of the books appeared to be marked. 

Susan shoved the Joyce back. “Excuse me,” she said, picking her way safely through the junk with the help of her “new” flashlight, the cookbook in her other hand. “How much is this book?” 

“Book?” The woman raised her head. “What book? Ah.” She smiled fondly at Susan. “That’s not for sale.” 

“But,” Susan sputtered, “but it was in the garage. It was with the other stuff.” She felt a little ridiculous, arguing about something she hadn’t even really looked at yet, but she wanted that book. 

The woman slapped a red jack down on a black king. “Not for sale,” she repeated. 

It was all too much for Susan’s PMS. She started sniffling, then sobbing, then outright bawling in the woman’s garage. A few minutes into the wailing, the woman looked up again. “All right,” she said. “You can have it. Five dollars.” 

Susan’s pockets were empty. Her mind raced. Could she run home and get the money? Hell, she didn’t even know where she was. It could take her an hour to get home, and by then the old woman would have reconsidered and locked herself in the house with The Moon Garden Cookbook. “You can have this back,” she said, planting the flashlight in the middle of the solitaire game. She clasped the book in both hands, half-expecting the woman to protest. 

“Fine,” the woman said. “Need this more now anyway.” She aimed the weak light at her cards with one hand and put a two of spades on a seven of diamonds. 

Susan wandered off into the twilight, wiping the ravages of her weeping from her face, and wondering how long it would take her to find her way home to face that family and those dishes. 

About two hours. 

By the time she reached her block, the moon was a lopsided ball in the sky, lighting her path well enough that she tripped on uneven sidewalk cracks only occasionally. The pseudo-Victorian carriage lantern blazed beside the door to their house. 

Susan hid her purchase under her sauce-blotched shirt, took a deep breath, and went in. 

For once the TV wasn’t on. The kids were sitting around the table, doing their homework or coloring. They looked up warily when she came in, and gave her a subdued chorus of, “Sorry, Mom.” She nodded and went into the kitchen. 

The place was their idea of spotless: all dishes done, but the drain rack precariously overfilled, and counters given a lick and half a promise. They’d even washed the monstrous Chicken Paprika pan. “Thanks, guys,” she called, eyes blurring again. “I think I’m going to bed now.” 

Sniffling, she headed for the stairway. Bob was reading the paper in the living room. “Good night,” he said as she went past, with an expression on his face and in his voice that she couldn’t read. 

But she could finally read The Moon Garden Cookbook. She shed her clothes in a pile near her dresser, ignoring the overburdened clothes tree only a few steps away. 

She didn’t bother to hunt for her nightshirt, just slid between the percale sheets of their king-size water bed, doubled her pillow under her head, and turned the reading lamp on. Not since The Plains of Passage had she been this anxious to read a book — and that one had been something of a disappointment. Trying to tone down her anticipation, she opened the book. 

The endpapers were illustrated with small likenesses of the full moon, so incredibly detailed that she expected them to float off the page and illuminate her bedroom. On one moon was scrawled “Property of Lenore Gilloway.” The next few pages were ordinary, title and copyright, that sort of stuff. No introduction, but the book was dedicated to Every woman who has gazed at the moon. 

She spent a minute or so going over the table of contents. Every section looked equally fascinating. This was not the sort of book she was going to skip around in. She started reading the first section, titled “The Moon Garden.” 

The Moon Garden, it began, shall be shaped as the moon is shaped. Into the soil shall be incorporated the blood from a woman’s time. The seeds shall be planted during the last full moon in May, at midnight. They shall be scattered from a woman’s hand. They shall be pressed into the soil by a woman’s feet. No metal shall touch the soil. There shall be no rows, nor stakes, nor labels. Such weeds as will thrive shall be allowed to inhabit the Moon Garden. Only rain shall water the soil. No man shall enter the Moon Garden. Only a woman shall harvest what is put forth. Only a woman shall know these secrets. 

Susan felt no desire to snicker. Before going on, she slipped out of bed and checked the Minnesota Weather guide Calendar beside the antique secretary where she paid bills and wrote in her journal. The full moon was in three days. And in three days, judging from her aching breasts and volatile emotions, she would have started her “woman’s time.” 

Shivering from equal parts of nudity and anticipation, she jumped back in bed. When the sloshing stopped, she turned to the recipes. The first section was labeled “Appetizers for those without Appetite.” Just what she needed, she thought, or what her family needed. The recipes bore titles like “Tempting Tuna Bites” and “Persuasive Pickles.” Woven through normal recipe-type instructions were phrases like pluck from the perimeter of the garden one handful; add to other ingredients. One handful of what? she wondered. In the recipe for “Beguilers,” it asked that the woman sprinkle a pinch of soil over the finished dish. 

The other sections were equally intriguing. “Breads for Bedding and Breeding.” “Compliment Condiments.” “Versatile Vegetables.” “Emotional Entrees.” “Desserts They Deserve.” “Other.” 

Some recipes were composed almost entirely of Moon Garden produce. Others had a teaspoon or a dash or a single leaf. By the time Susan reached the section called “Other,” she was completely enchanted. 

This section, unlike any of the others, had both a warning and a disclaimer at the beginning. Let her read the recipe through three times before she begins, it stated. Let her choose to continue in the knowledge of her own responsibility. Let her realize that she is a woman, apart from the Moon Garden, creator of it, and not its creature. 

That caught her attention. And the recipes that followed held it well. “Childrid Soup.” “Candy Curses.” Recipes for withering the manhood of unfaithful lovers, for binding the will of unsuspecting friends, for inducing various illnesses. The last recipe in the book was “Rest in Peas,” an innocuous vegetable dish that, if her guess about the title was correct, brought about the immediate demise of the eater. 

Bob’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. Before he reached the bedroom door, Susan snapped the light off, stashed the book under her pillow, and reigned sleep, turning over, just as he came in, to provide a reason for the waves. She hoped he would not regard her nakedness as an invitation. 

If her nocturnal acting was not perfect, neither was it tested. Bob eased his body into bed as gently as is possible on a water-filled mattress, and lay quietly on his own side of the bed, without touching her. 

The waxing moon shed splinters through the miniblinds. Susan had tracked the progress of the thin bars of light a third of the way across the room before she finally fell asleep, one hand resting on the book beneath her pillow. 

THE NEXT day, after the kids left for school and Bob for work, it didn’t take Susan long to decide that No metal shall touch the soil meant after the damn garden was planted. Trying to dig up an immense circle of sod in one corner of the yard without metal gardening tools was impossible. She grabbed every tool she could find from the garage. She chose a short-handled hoe and began hacking at the sod. The sweat poured from her face. Her arm ached. Not until she felt a wave of dizziness did she stop, gasping for breath and flopping down in the shade of a variegated dogwood. 

The circle she had marked had a diameter of twice her body’s length. She had pounded a wooden spoon — that was before she discarded the no-metal rule — into the ground, had lain down with the soles of her bare feet touching it, and, reaching above her head, had gingerly pounded another spoon. When she got up, it pulled out several strands of her hair. She’d tied a string to the center spoon, paid it out until it reached the other, and used that to mark the circumference. 

Now, as soon as her heart stopped pumping so wildly, she saw that she had succeeded in cutting a thin strip around the entire edge of the circle, with a few sections gouged out at random from the center. The amount of green left inside the brown rim dismayed her. She groaned, and heaved herself to her feet. If she was to accomplish this in three days — and live through it — she would have to go about it more methodically. She staggered to the house for a pitcher of ice water. 

Three gallons of water, six broken fingernails, and a sunburn later, Susan had carved out a brown crescent moon. The heap of discarded sod was growing. 

The school bus groaned to a stop; a moment later, she heard the voices of her kids, shedding the constraints of classroom and bus. They were always so loud for a while after getting home. The front door slammed. Susan sat back and composed herself and a set of rules. She couldn’t have the kids helping in the garden. Amy would be O.K., because she was a girl, but that would mean the boys would be in there, and she wasn’t sure how that would fit in with the first section’s “shall nots.” And Amy wasn’t enough older to use age as an excuse. Besides, if the Moon Garden Cookbook worked, she might be using it for years. Then she’d have to come up with other excuses to keep the boys out. No, the Moon Garden was hers and hers alone. No one else was to set foot in it. 

She had decided that this one rule would cover everything — oh, and no one else was to water it — two rules, when the back door opened, and the kids found her. 

““Hi, Mom,” they hollered. “What are you doing?” “A garden? I don’t want to weed any garden.” “Don’t plant vegetables. I hate vegetables.” 

Susan took a deep breath. “Yes, it’s a garden. No, you don’t have to weed it. As a matter of fact, no one else is to set foot in it. At all.” At this point, she narrowed her eyes and looked at each one in turn so they would realize she was serious. “And you are not to water it or set the sprinkler up anywhere near it. And I will plant whatever I please in my garden.” 

After a second of silence, Tommy shrugged and said, “I’m starving. Can I have a snack? Can we have macaroni and cheese for dinner?” 

“Go ahead and get a snack,” she said. “And you guys can make whatever you want for dinner.” 

“All right,” said Darryl. He and Tommy turned and raced for the door, pushing and shoving one another in an effort to be first. Amy rolled her eyes and followed at a sixth grader’s more dignified pace. 

When the door shut behind Amy, Susan grimaced. Whatever you want usually translated as two large cans of Spagettios, nuked in the microwave, complemented by slices of Velveeta cheese and Hi-C. She would be the one who wasn’t too hungry tonight. And Bob would undoubtedly have to have twice-warmed SpagettiOs; he hardly ever made it home at dinner-time anymore. 

The fact that her muscles quivered and ached didn’t diminish Susan’s enthusiasm for the project. Hell, even if The Moon Garden Cookbook didn’t pan out, at least she would have the fresh vegetables. Leeks, tomatoes, lettuce, peas, spinach. She was the only one in the family who liked vegetables cooked in the proper manner. Bob’s idea of a vegetable was canned green beans or maybe creamed corn. The only greens the kids would touch were those little clovers in Lucky Charms, and pickle chips on fast-food burgers. At least they ate the more ordinary fruits. 

Susan decided to keep working until the kids hailed her for dinner or Bob came home. She stretched and groaned and attacked the sod again. 

It was an incredible side effect of the exercise, but even SpagettiOs and Velveeta tasted good. She drew the line at Hi-C, though, draining several glasses of water instead. Bob called as they were eating, and said he wouldn’t be home until late. “That’s fine,” she said. “I’m going to bed early anyway. I’m working on a new garden, and” — how to say this? —”I don’t want you to walk in it, Bob. This is my garden only.” 

“O.K.,” he said, sounding relieved rather than puzzled or hurt. “Feet off your garden. Don’t wait up for me. Bye.” 

Susan hung up and went back to her dinner. The last of her second helping had cooled in the bottom of her bowl; she’d have to dig a garden the size of the moon in order for that to taste good. “I’ll do the dishes, since you guys cooked,” she said. That was the house policy anyway, although it sometimes didn’t stick when she was cooking. They cleared off their own plates and utensils, and then the kids went to witch TV. 

One thing to be said for this meal: it didn’t require a lot of cleanup. One extra knife from cutting the cheese. One serving spoon. Then just bowls and spoons and glasses. She put a lid on the SpagettiOs bowl and stuck it in the fridge. 

Tired turned to exhausted in a hurry. She had washed her hands before dinner, but her knees were encrusted with dirt, and there was a salty film over her entire body from sweating. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed,” she told the kids, yawning mid-sentence. “Is your homework done?” 

Darryl shook his head a little more vigorously than necessary, although Amy seemed sincere, and Tommy, in first grade, hardly ever had homework. “Darryl?” she said. 

“Oh, all right.” Looking put-upon, he extracted himself from some position the posture teachers would have frowned on, and went to his room. Susan gave him a quick hug as he went past, and went to give the same to the other two. “Good night,” she said. “Love you.” 

If the “you, too’s” she received in return were a little absentminded, that was O.K. 

Susan dragged herself up the stairs. She stood under a pulsating shower head until her arms and back unknotted a little, and then, nude again, crawled into bed. Only, this time, she didn’t do any reading before she fell asleep. 

In the morning she could barely move. Only two more days, though. She forced herself to stand, did some stretching and groaning exercises. 

The kids and Bob were eating cold cereal when she went down. She poured herself a bowl of Cheerios. “What time did you get in?” she asked Bob. 

“Late,” he said. “You were asleep.” 

Obviously, she thought to herself, but she didn’t have the energy for sarcasm. Besides, she’d already poured her milk, and she couldn’t stand soggy cereal. “Ummm-hmm,” she said, still chewing 

Before she finished, all four of them had gone their respective ways. Susan loaded a little cooler with apples, granola bars, and crackers, and filled a gallon jug with ice water. Then she trudged on out to the Moon Garden. 

With slow, steady movements and numerous short breaks, she was able to finish desodding the circle by the time the kids got home. The next day, she attacked the ground with the hoe to break the ground up a little, raking it approximately smooth after. And her period had started. With unusual satisfaction, she was aware of the maxi pad stuck to her underpants. 

She drove to Farmer’s Seed and Nursery while the kids were making Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and bought enough seeds to fill an area six times the size of the Moon Garden. She didn’t intend to plant the entire contents of each packet, but she did want a variety. Maybe a sprinkle of each. 

Dinner that evening was a matter of mechanical movements for Susan. The rest of the family fell into eating the instant-macaroni dish and microwaved hot dogs with gusto. She barely noticed what her fork held. All she could think about was the stash of seeds in her underwear drawer and the waiting ground of the Moon Garden. Tonight — she yawned. How in blazes was she going to wake up at midnight? She couldn’t set an alarm, or Bob would hear it. Maybe she’d just stay awake in bed until about 11:30 or so and sneak down then. 

Hah. That plan lasted about two minutes. Susan could tell she was falling asleep, but could do nothing about it. Her last conscious thought was the knowledge that she would never wake up before midnight. 

It was light in the room when she opened her eyes. But the light was white, ghostly, shed from the full moon that floated outside the bedroom window. Susan jerked upright, causing the water bed to convulse. The green numbers on her bedside clock read 11:49. 

She had eleven minutes. 

Carefully now, she eased herself over the side of the bed and padded to the dresser, holding the drawer up slightly as she pulled it out so it wouldn’t squeak. She grabbed the hem of her nightshirt and made a pouch for the seeds. Quietly down the dark staircase, feeling for each step with a bare foot. 

The air was as cold as the colorless moonlight, but Susan barely noticed her goose bumps. Wouldn’t it be something, she thought, if this works. Even if it didn’t, though, it was a mystical adventure. A woman’s ritual. She reached the edge of the Moon Garden. 

The little paper packets with names like “Burpee” were suddenly inappropriate. Susan sat cross-legged on the grass, her knees making a hollow in the nightshirt. She tore each packet in half and poured the seeds into the basin of her shirt, stirring them with her hands. Then she stood, cradling the mixed seeds against her belly, and stepped out of her under-pants and into the Moon Garden. 

She walked across the raked soil and stood, legs apart, in the center of the circle. The full moon shone over her, casting strange shadows with no depth. Susan plunged her hand into the seeds and lifted it. Seeds trickled out. Then she flicked her wrist and let her fingers splay, sending an arc of seeds flying through the silver air. She turned a fraction and repeated her motions. Again and again. She was dizzy with the slow turning, intoxicated by the moonlight, mesmerized by her own actions. Finally her fingers closed on nothing but the cloth of her nightshirt. 

Susan blinked, let her nightshirt fall to brush her thighs. A few small seeds fell before her. She pressed them into the ground, stepping firmly down, setting her feet half a step ahead at an angle. Without consciously deciding to, she walked a spiral that took her to the edge of the Moon Garden. 

A little blood had trickled down her legs. It seemed natural; she wiped it away with her hand and wiped her hands on the dewy grass. Then she slipped back into her underpants and drowsily made her way back to bed. 

The next couple of weeks continued smoothly, with Susan’s hormones back to normal level. The kids — still a little cowed by the Chicken Paprika outburst — made an effort to be pleasant. Bob was around about as much as usual for these days, but the only waves he made were on nights when he lowered himself into the water bed late. 

Susan gathered up all the gardening implements, cleaned them up, and, after they were thoroughly dry, stuck them in a thirty-gallon trash bag in a corner of the garage. Only the handles of the rake and hoe protruded. She didn’t want anyone to get the bright idea of messing in her garden if she didn’t happen to be around. Then — since she wasn’t supposed to water —it was just a matter of waiting. 

She dragged one of the picnic table benches over and put it on the house side of the garden, both as a partial barrier from the rest of the yard and as a place to sit. Her skin browned in the spring sunshine, after it finished peeling from the first burn. She sat on the bench at odd moments during the day and gazed at the Moon Garden. 

Bits of green peeked up, hair-fine or heart-shaped or fuzzy. Some withered; some thrived. Every day, there was new growth and new death in the circle of ground. 

It was beginning to look like a real garden, discounting the randomness, by the time the kids’ niceness wore off and Susan’s hormones kicked in again. 

She was gritting her teeth and slapping the table with a dishcloth after a breakfast battle — only two days left of school, and the kids were getting antsy — when it occurred to her that there was probably enough stuff growing for her to use The Moon Garden Cookbook. She took it from its new home between The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and The Joy of Cooking, brought it and a cup of coffee over to the savagely cleaned table, and began to flip through the recipes. 

She decided to try just one item tonight. Easier that way to see if it worked. Maybe “Sweetloaf” or “No-Blues Berry Muffins,” she was thinking, when she came across a recipe titled “Bland Pudding.” 

If the name wasn’t exactly inspiring, the subtitle made it sound like just what the mother ordered: To reduce the collisions of spirit and will. Calming. 

Calming. Susan smiled over a sip of coffee and scanned the ingredients, hoping there wouldn’t be anything the garden couldn’t deliver. Milk, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla extract — and one leaf, chosen at random from the Moon Garden, Susan shook her head. This was beginning to sound more and more unlikely. With her luck, she’d grab some chives, and no one would touch the onion-flavored pudding. What the hell, though. 

She meandered out to the garden and began scanning it for a likely looking leaf. “‘Chosen at random,’“ she said out loud. She closed her eyes, walked forward until she no longer felt lawn beneath her feet, and bent down, plucking the first thing she touched. 

She brought it up to her nose and sniffed. Mint. Her eyes flew open. She hadn’t planted mint of any kind. It must have been a volunteer. And wasn’t it early for herbs? She shook her head again, this time in bemusement, and went back to the kitchen to brew up her pudding. 

Just to keep things on an even keel until the Bland Pudding was served, Susan made grilled-cheese sandwiches for dinner, and a fruit salad. She called Bob up and asked him if he could please make it home by dinner-time for a change, as the kids hadn’t seen much of him lately. He reluctantly agreed to try. 

The sandwiches were all grilled and staying warm in the toaster oven. The fruit salad was on the table. The Bland Pudding was chilled in the refrigerator in individual bowls with Saran Wrap over them. The kids had just finished watching an old “Family Ties,” when Bob pulled up. 

Susan put the sandwiches on a plate and announced dinner. 

Tommy didn’t want to eat his crusts. Amy picked through the fruit salad, avoiding bananas. Darryl complained because she had put in red grapes instead of green grapes. Bob fidgeted as if the seat of his chair were infested with ants. Susan’s smile grew taut. “Let’s just have our dessert,” she said, in dire need herself of some calming. 

The family stared at her in disbelief. On other, similar occasions, she had entirely refused to serve dessert. She pushed her chair back and hurried to the fridge. 

“Pudding,” Amy complained when the bowls were set in front of everyone. “I had pudding at school today.” 

“Eat it,” said Susan. She took a bite of her own and relaxed. Everyone else ate as well, Amy with a martyred expression that dissolved as she swallowed. 

It tasted mainly like plain vanilla pudding. Even Susan, who knew it was in there, couldn’t separate out the flavor of mint. But there was something in it that made them all tranquil. After they had all scraped their bowls to spoon up the last bite, they methodically finished what was left on their plates. Tommy even ate his crusts. 

Susan felt a tingle of something that she vaguely recognized as awe, but she was too mellow to focus in on it. Companionably, they all cleared off. She and Bob took to the living room with the paper, and the kids did the dishes without a single squabble. Homework and bedtime went equally smoothly. 

As she and Bob crawled into bed at about the same time, Susan realized it had been a month or more since they’d made love. It was just an observation, though, and she rolled over and went to sleep. 

The bland had worn off the pudding by morning, but Susan, with growing excitement at the apparent powers of The Moon Garden Cookbook, could handle even PMS and Tommy’s spilled bowl of soggy Cap’n Crunch. Tonight she would try one of the appetizers, she decided, and get them all to eat real food, food with more than two ingredients, and with seasonings other than too much salt. She kissed them all, even Darryl, who was at an age when kisses from Mom were definitely not cool. Bob’s expression was a little strange, but she was too involved in mental menu planning to give it a lot of thought. “Special dinner tonight,” she called to him as he headed for the garage. “Be home by six.” 

At Mr. P’s, she bought chicken and sausage and seafood and vegetables —the garden wasn’t quite up to providing for paella yet — and saffron. The very first appetizer in the cookbook was something she thought they’d eat without complaining: mini-weiners on toothpicks. The Moon Garden’s contribution, chives and whatever grows nearest — in this case, some weeds — was boiled with them and then discarded, so they wouldn’t be able to pick off the important part. 

Susan smiled as she breathed the rich smells. This time, she thought they’d eat it. 

Complaints flew around the table like sparrows. She made her set speech about the proper mode of declining, and said, “Well, just fill up on the appetizers, then. You don’t have to eat the paella if you don’t feel like it.” 

Four mouths fell open. “We don’t even have to take one bite?” asked Tommy, thinking of the standard rule. Amy gouged him with her elbow and gave him a dirty look. 

“Not unless you want to,” Susan said. 

Everyone reached for the appetizers. When the flurry of hands had stopped, Tommy had seven, Amy five, Darryl eight, and Bob three. Susan had one. “Don’t want to spoil my appetite,” she said, popping the morsel in her mouth. 

As soon as she began chewing, she was ravenous for paella. The smell beckoned her, made her mouth water. She reached for the ladle — but Amy beat her to it. 

The kids ate paella as if it were mini-doughnuts at the state fair or buttered popcorn at the movies or candy at Halloween. Seconds, they all had, and thirds, not asking what scallops were, devouring chicken and beef and shrimp with equal hunger. Bob and Susan could barely keep up, their own appetites enormous, fulfilled only when the ceramic casserole was empty, scraped so clean it barely needed washing. 

“Wow,” said Tommy, setting his fork and spoon down; he had been using both. “That was good, Mom.” 

Emphatic nods and muffled “mmmm-hmmmms” echoed his statement. Bob looked more satisfied than he had for weeks. “Delicious,” he said. “I didn’t think it was going to be that good.” 

It wasn’t, thought Susan. Her stomach was comfortably stuffed. The rest of the appetizers had been pushed off the plates to make room for paella, toothpicks sticking at odd angles. Susan decided it was a lesson in quantity: one or two appetizers each would be plenty. 

Over the next few weeks, as the garden began to mature, Susan used The Moon Garden Cookbook to help Tommy get over nerves at the beginning of T-ball (“Aplomb Cake”) and to stop Amy from being bored (“Curiosity Cream Puffs”). She was able to make foods she liked at every meal — as long as she remembered to serve an appetizer. Bob changed his schedule a little — came home for dinner, but left for work again afterward. A big project, he explained. Kind of open-ended. 

It didn’t bother Susan much at all. She’d been dismayed for a little while to discover that all the delicious eating had put ten pounds on her, but a recipe for “Reducing Tea” took that off right away, and five more as well. She had a cup of it for breakfast every morning. There was even something called “Equilibrium Jam” that seemed to do away with her PMS. 

Life was proceeding smoothly, when Bob rolled over one night, gathered her to him in his sleep, and murmured, “Kathy.” 

Susan shook off the remnants of a dream, a tense spot forming in her stomach. Who the hell was Kathy? 

Over the next few days, she tried to convince herself it was nothing. Kathy was a co-worker. Bob really was working late. She called at the office several times, when he’d gone back after dinner, and he answered the phone. Did his voice sound tense? 

Susan found herself examining him as if he were a strange new plant emerging from the soil of the Moon Garden. He never just sat down and talked with her about what he was feeling. Had he ever? Even when they were first married? His interaction with the kids was limited to questions like, “How was school today?” and, “Are you trying out for cheerleading?” That was directed at Amy, who was a bit of a klutz and heavily into art. 

His favorite cheese was American, Kraft Singles in those individual plastic wrappers. His favorite bread was Wonder bread. Try as she could, Susan could not remember what had possessed her to marry him. 

Three days after the “Kathy,” she dug out their wedding album. She would know, she thought, taking a deep breath before opening the ivory silk cover. If she saw the pictures, she would know — and then they could recapture it, rebuild it. 

But the pictures were two young Strangers scrunched into uncomfortable clothes, with too many attendants. The strongest recollections she had of the entire event were that the mints had turned out the wrong color — lime green instead of the color of rose leaves — and she had developed an intense dislike for Bob’s mother. 

And on their honeymoon, Bob had taken her to a golf resort. She didn’t golf. He did. The nights were great, and some of the afternoons, but . . . . 

Why had it taken her this long? 

She put the album back in the drawer and went for The Moon Garden Cookbook. 

There were recipes to reclaim old loves, recipes to cause pimples —she thought of finding “Kathy” and slipping some “Blemishing Cream” into her coffee — recipes to improve one’s luck. She made a mental note of “Pot Luck” and turned the page. 

“Cornfession.” That was it. She farmed the kids out one night to their best friends’ houses for sleep-overs and fed Bob “Cornfession.” She didn’t even have to make an appetizer, which was fortunate, because he liked creamed corn — the base of the recipe — and she loathed it. She had no wish to be confessing anything to him. 

After the first bite, he laid his spoon down and said, “Susan, I have something to tell you.” 

She clenched her fist around the napkin in her lap and tried to stay calm. “What is it?” 

Bob rushed on. “I’ve been seeing someone for a while. I —” 

“‘A while’?” Susan broke in. “How long is ‘a while’? Why didn’t you talk to met 

Bob turned his head away and hugged himself with his arms. “A year,” he said softly. “A year.” 

He looked at her. “I’m in love with her,” he said to Susan. 

Who is she?” whispered Susan. “How old is she?” 

Bob blushed a dark red. “Twenty-three,” he said. “She’s the receptionist at work.” 

For several minutes, Susan was incapable of speech. She stared up at the ceiling and thought about stabbing him with a chef’s knife or strangling him with a bra. A whole year with a twenty-three-year-old, and he hadn’t had the decency to discuss it with her, to try to work out their problems. And what about the kids? That was the main thing that quashed her murderous thoughts: if she killed him, she’d go to prison, and who would take care of them? That and the fact that Bob was stronger than she was, and undoubtedly would not allow her to strangle him with a bra. 

“We’ll just have to work something out,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Do you want a divorce?” 

Bob looked uncomfortable. “Well, Kathy’s not ready to settle down yet. I don’t think our lives need to change for a while. I just felt the urge to get it out in the open.” 

Susan felt the urge to stuff him into the Cuisinart, but she desisted. 

Over the next few weeks, she fed Bob stuff from the cookbook. “Scalped Potatoes” made half his hair fall out. “Pandowdy” caused him to dress badly. “Scurry” gave him diarrhea. The remedy she gave him for the diarrhea, “Milk of Amnesia,” made him forget Kathy for a day, but he also forgot the kids, so that wasn’t a long-term solution. 

What did she want to accomplish with all this? Just having him around, even on the “Milk of Amnesia” day, wasn’t exactly thrilling. She briefly considered “Rest in Peas,” but just because she didn’t love him anymore — if she ever really had — didn’t mean he deserved to die. 

She wanted to be free. If that meant he was also free, so be it. What she needed was the recipe for quick, amicable divorce with plenty of child support. 

Susan pored over The Moon Garden Cookbook. combining different dishes to come up with the perfect menu, scratching out choices, starting again. When she thought that the meal would give her what she wanted without one part canceling the effects of another, she sent the kids to their friends again and got ready to serve Bob her first complete cookbook meal. 

The appetizer was double duty, both to make him hungry and to put him in the proper frame of mind. She had chosen crackers with “Cheese Pleaser.” Susan had made a double batch, his and hers, of everything, and left the Moon Garden ingredients out of her food. She had everything dished in their respective bowls and plates and glasses to avoid experiencing the effects herself. 

“Where are the kids?” Bob asked when he came into the house. 

“Out,” she said. “Let’s just eat, O.K.?” She handed him a cracker, liberally spread with “Cheese Pleaser.” 

He popped it in his mouth. “O.K. Whatever you want.” 

She had dressed his “Agreeable Green Salad” with “You Bet Vinaigrette.” When he was down to a few stray croutons, she said. “Bob, I think we should get a divorce.” 

“We probably should,” he said, accepting the “Heartsick Breadstick” she handed to him. After the first bite, his eyes filled with tears. “Oh Susan,” he said, “I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.” 

This was working better than she had expected. Susan couldn’t decide whether to feel happy or sad. “I’ll be right back,” she said, rushing into the kitchen. She took their filled plates from the barely warm oven. She’d put a piece of parsley from the Moon Garden on her own, just to distinguish it from Bob’s. 

Bob agreed to file for divorce the next day while he was finishing his “Thymely Chicken.” He told her she should keep the house while he nibbled on spears of “Asparagift.” 

She brought up child support as he was eating “Generosity Torte.” He wiped his mouth on his napkin. “I can’t stand to think of them going without,” he said. “After all, college is coming up.” He looked at her steadily across the table. “I’ll provide for them.” 

Susan immediately passed him a cup of “Remembermint Tea,” extra strong. She had done it. As Bob sipped his tea, she realized that she’d hardly eaten anything herself. It wasn’t as if she were hungry, though. She stuck the sprig of parsley in her mouth and started chewing. “I want to be fair,” she heard herself say. “You may want to start another family with Kathy at some point. Make sure you plan to keep enough of your income for yourself.” What was she saying? But it was right, she felt, right and good. She did want to be fair. 

It wasn’t until Bob had gone off to tell Kathy about the divorce that Susan figured out what had happened. The recipe was in the back of the appetizers section, one of several under the heading of “Guaranteed Garnishes. “Parity Parsley,” it was called: To promote equality between diners. Garnish any food with fresh parsley, plucked with the left hand from the Moon Garden. Had she used her left hand? Probably; her right had been full of all the different bits of green for Bob’s dishes. 

She shrugged. So the child support wouldn’t be as lavish as she’d originally planned. They’d survive. 

Susan skimmed through The Moon Garden Cookbook, alternately crying and smiling. As she flipped pages, she found a recipe that she would try in the near future. “Date Bread.” It was supposed to make the eater unusually attractive to members of the opposite sex. She’d just have to make sure the kids didn’t get their hands on it. 

It was going to be a long night, this beginning of the rest of her life. Bob had taken a few things in a suitcase; she wouldn’t see the kids until after school tomorrow. Susan’s stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten much. 

She found a good, cheery recipe and took a flashlight out to the garden. All she needed was a pinch of something white, and she could make “Apple Better.” After she found a weed blossom, she thumbed the flashlight switch and just stood there for a long time. The Moon Garden was beautiful in the light of its friend in the sky. 

ILLUSTRATION: Evening, Mr Phelpe. Your usual table? 

* * * *

Laurel Winter’s short fiction last appeared in our December, 1993 issue, with another food related story, “The Negotiator.” Unlike “The Negotiator,” which is science fiction, “The Moon Garden Cookbook” is fantasy. Laurel says she wrote this story “after cooking dinner one evening, tired of the fact that my kids were such picky eaters.”