Page 86 of Fit for Love

“I’ll take your word for it,” I say and sample my own dish.

Interesting.It’s rich, meaty, and nutty, with an earthy aftertaste.Reminiscent of liver pâté and meatloaf.

Ashton crunches into his taco and seems to enjoy it.Mom and Dad sing praises to their choices as well, and even Jordan seems to like her dish.

As much as it pains me to admit it—and despite the idea being completely out of the question—maybe she and Cameron would make a suitable match after all.In a parallel universe.Where she definitely isn’t Ashton’s sister.

“Back to jokes?”Mom suggests when the edge of everyone’s hunger is blunted.

“Sorry, no,” Cameron says.“I need to discuss some business with Ashton and Jordan.”

“Boo,” Mom says.“Work and birthdays don’t mix.”

“Yeah,” Dad says.“You don’t see me asking anyone to take off their pants.”

Cameron frowns.“I thought everyone promised not to call me a workaholic today, of all days.”

“Sorry,” Mom and Dad say in unison.

“I want to go choose a dessert,” Mom says.“They have a big display case of them.”

“Great idea,” Dad says.“I’ll join you.”

With that, they leave, which seems to be all the invitation Ashton needs to start talking about his app.Soon, he, Jordan, and Cameron seem to be speaking a foreign language, throwing out terms like “real-time suggesting,” “natural-language processing,” and “food-pairing algorithms.”

“It sounds like you can really help us,” Jordan finally says just as Mom and Dad return.

Cameron nods.“Sounds like it.Give me your email, and I’ll have my assistant set up a meeting so we can discuss this in greater detail.”

“Dessert picked,” Mom announces as Jordan gives Cameron her card.“I’m going to order the one that looks like a little purse.”

“And I’m getting the one that looks like a burger,” Dad says.Looking at his half-eaten black pudding, he adds, “I’m actually craving a burger now.”

“Did you like your dish?”Cameron asks Jordan.

“Yeah,” she says.“But it makes me wonder—who first thought of fermenting these birds?And why?”

That’s what she wonders?I’m curious as to who thought of stuffing them into the skin of a seal, and what did that seal do to deserve it?Not hold a ball on his nose long enough?

“Forget birds,” Ashton says.“How did someone come up with alcohol?”

Jordan grins.“Someone went, ‘Here are some grapes.Let’s have them spoil and drinkthat.Maybe something good will happen.’”

“Cheese is weird too,” Cameron chimes in.“Here’s some curdled milk.Tastes awful.Let’s wait longer and see what happens.”

“In general, I think whoever came up with the idea of drinking milk must’ve been a pervert,” Dad says.“I mean, we take it for granted now, but someone had at some point looked at a cow and thought: ‘I want to suck onthoseteats.’”

“Udders,” Mom corrects him.“And don’t forget that humans were lactose intolerant for a lot of our history, so perverts kept trying to drink milk until some lucky one had the mutation that let him digest it, and then he—because it must have been a man—passed the milk-drinking gene on.”

“I think fermentation is still stranger,” I say.“Have you ever seen how kombucha is made?My boss made me make it once, and there’s a jellyfish-like thing involved.”

“It’s not a jellyfish.It’s a Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast, or SCOBY,” Cameron says.“And it’s edible.”

“It didn’t look edible,” I say.At least no more so than a jellyfish, which is on the menu here, so there’s that.

“Many things become edible if you’re brave enough,” Jordan says sagely.

“But you don’t need to be particularly brave to eat SCOBY,” Cameron replies.“I’ve eaten candy made from it.And jerky.All tasted fine.”

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