Dreamscape

Chefs Ming Tsai and Jacques Pepin are teaching me how to make casseroles. Ming's creation is rather like a mooncake, with a characteristic flaky, stamped crust on top, only filled with red pork and gelatinous pork fat. Mssr. Pepin's has a bechamel sauce, into which we are putting broccoli and cauliflower. Because of all the fat in the dishes, I'm feeling grateful I did aerobics earlier when the moon was full. Jacques is about to add some sort of meat to the casserole when the air raid sirens start going off.

Damn alarm.

I keep hitting snooze and drifting back into the dream--Ming is trying to tell me something, and it's more real to my consciousness than the sirens and the room beyond them--but my husband helps me get up.