Trophic Cascade

– John Montague

If I stopped feeding you the regular diet you expect from me, told you once and for all Shop’s closed, take your business elsewhere, would you finally go away, leave me alone, find some 24-hour diner down the road, turn your taste buds to something else more worthy: sushi rolled in gold leaf nori perhaps, or trending donkey stew; fish maw soup, smoked venison, pasta in squid ink— washed down with vats of Veuve Clicquot or better yet, that 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux ($160,000, Thomas Jefferson’s initials etched on the bottle)? Tell me you too have grown weary of the taste of my home-cooked platters of regret, my overboiled tureens of sorrow, that poor excuse of a pastry case holding every dried, crumbled madeleine from the past. Those creams taste curdled; even the spoons cringe from being dipped into them. Yesterday, I breakfasted on tofu, wanting a cleaner palate, to rinse the acrid aftertaste of salt from my mouth. You must be tired as well, tearing through sinew, chewing through gristle, sucking the difficult marrow out of these bones. Here’s a concept to consider: the complex food web, multiple levels where surely, you’ll find something suitable to your palate— like a food court devoted to global cuisines! I’ll find you a deal, even some Groupons. In time, you won’t even remember the taste of me.

In response to Speech alone.