Salt and Brine

I have a much-thumbed tomb on my cookbook shelf, entitled The Food Lover’s Companion. It contains thousands of definitions of ingredients and culinary terms. Under the letter B, the definition for brine reads thus: “a strong solution of water and salt used for pickling or preserving foods.”

As I prepare a flavored brine for pork loin, as I crush fennel seeds and toss sprigs of thyme into the boiling salt water, I think about this mixture and how it perfectly mirrors my mood tonight. Numbed by half a bottle of red wine, I am partially pickled myself. And my lips still taste the saltiness of the tears that have been coursing down my cheeks. I want not just to marinade this pork loin, not just to use the sand-paper salting to tenderize this flesh. More that that I wish I could tenderize my heart. It feels hollow and hard and mean inside my chest. But some ingredients can’t be brined; some relationships resist preservation.