Tofu
by Merri-Todd Webster
(22 September 1999)

It's sort of like tofu, I guess.

You know, tofu.  That weird cheesy stuff Buddhists and
soybean lovers think is a viable alternative to meat.

The first time it was my turn to cook, I put out one
of those chickens you buy already cooked and a salad
that comes ready-made in a bag--just toss with the
dressing.  Okay, I admit, I'm a great believer in
prepared and processed foods.  After we'd picked all
the meat off the chicken, I was going to throw it
away, but Scully said, "Oh, no, Mulder, don't throw
that carcase away.  I'll boil it down for stock."

First of all, this was the first time I had heard the
word "carcase" applied to something I'd just been
eating.  Second, I hadn't seen anyone so eager to make
food out of what looked to me like garbage since my
mother gave up real cooking for opening cans and
heating stuff up.

But who am I to argue with a forensic pathologist?  If
anybody knew how to get a second meal out of a dead
chicken, it would be a pathologist, I guess.

I hung out in the kitchen while Scully went through
the ritual of converting a chicken carcase into soup
stock.  She put the chicken remains into a huge pot
and filled it with water and white wine.  She boiled
it for two hours, which was enough to make me hungry
all over again, only we were busy just then.  Then she
turned it off and let it cool a while.  When it was
cool enough, she poured the broth through a colander
into a storage bowl.  The colander caught what was
left of the chicken--grey bones, slimy skin, and a few
pieces of meat good enough to be skimmed off and put
into the broth.  The bowl went into the fridge until
the next day, which happened to be Sunday.

When she got back from church, Scully took the broth
out of the fridge and put it into a slightly smaller
cookpot.  She added fresh baby carrots, a handful of
dried onion and celery bits, some salt, some parsley,
some other seasonings, and more white wine.  I was
practically licking my chops by this point.  Then she
got a little rectangular package out of the fridge,
opened it up with a knife, and took out what looked
like a large block of Ivory soap that had been sitting
in water without being touched for, oh, about four
months.

"What the *hell* is that?"

"It's tofu, Mulder."  She smiled cheerfully, as if
every man ought to be joyful at the sight of *tofu* in
his home.  "You know, bean curd.  Soybean-based meat
substitute."

She got out a knife and started slicing and dicing. 
Not to be too gruesome, but Scully never looks happier
than when she's cutting something up.  And she thinks
*I'm* weird.  Anyway, despite the knife and all, I
foolishly said, "So what is it for?"

"It's going into the soup, to supplement the chicken."

It did go into the soup.  I didn't even try to stop
it.  And I ate the soup.  It was delicious.  No, it
was fantastic.  And the tofu tasted like chicken, even
if it did feel kind of... spongey.  [Is that the right
spelling?]

Being married to Scully has been a lot like the
chicken soup with the tofu in it.  It was wonderful,
satisfying, home-cooked soup, the kind of thing you
figure people eat in Hallmark Hall of Fame specials,
but it wasn't at all the sort of thing mother made. 
*My* mother never cooked as well as Scully does, to
tell you the truth.  Chicken soup with tofu thrown in
surprises you, mainly by tasting so normal and good
that you wonder why you haven't always thrown in a
hunk of stuff that looks like Ivory soap in decay.

We won the war.  We saved the world.  We cleared
Walter Skinner's name and won amnesty for Alex Krycek,
who turned out to be the consortium's number one
gossip columnist--he knew where *all* the skeletons
were, and believe me, we opened a lotta closets.  And
then one day I was watching Scully go over the latest
expense report--her tongue sticks out between her
teeth sometimes when she's concentrating--and I
thought, I should marry this woman.  I should drive
her home and sweep her up in my arms and make love to
her and hold her while she sleeps.  Christ, we've done
everything else.

I tried to be very, very casual.  Even nonchalant. 
"So, Scully, wanna get married?"  It sounded like I
was asking if she wanted some coffee.

She looked up from the papers, pulled her tongue in,
narrowed her eyes at me, and then nodded, once. 
"Sure, I'd love to."

Fortunately for me, the Catholic church no longer
requires you to convert in order to marry one of its
own.  Good thing, since I wasn't sure I was
technically Christian, anyway--one of mom's
grandmothers is Jewish.  We got married in a Catholic
church, with Mrs. Scully standing up for Scully and
Frohike standing up for me, and Scully wore pink and
this really fascinating hat and carried little roses,
and we went to Venice for our honeymoon, where we had
sex for the first time on our wedding night in a
little hotel older than any building in North America.
 It was entirely satisfactory, as Scully likes to say.

We moved into a new apartment in Georgetown.  I gave
up on trying to keep fish.  Scully tried having
flowers in window-boxes and did well until the first
time we were out of town on a case for nearly a week. 
In July.  They all died, big-time.  They looked like
something out of a commercial with Sally Struthers in
it.  "Please, won't you help save these plants?" 
Pretty soon she gave up on the plants and bought a
bunch of cactus instead.  They're doing just fine, and
they have a lot more personality than flowers, if you
ask me.

I still call my wife Scully.  She still calls herself
Scully.  No name changes, no hyphenations, no
arguments from me.  Like I would wish the name
"Mulder" on anyone.  Of course, it doesn't sound so
bad when she says it. And we do have a few silly
nicknames we use only at home, but I'm not tellin'.

Tofu or no tofu, I find being married works pretty
well.  We still work together, we still work the
X-Files, we still have plenty to talk about.  We used
to spend almost this much time together, anyway; now
we've just added some... more intimate activities to
our old schedule of work and hanging out.  Like
sleeping together.  My sleep habits have really
improved, with Scully for company.  (Hell, who am I
kidding--all my habits have improved.)  It's not
unlike adding tofu to a soup that already has chicken
in it.  We had something good, and then we added some
more stuff which was also good.  And the old stuff and
the new stuff work really well together.

I guess if I can eat tofu chicken soup and live to
tell, I can survive being married.  To Scully.  Now,
do we have any canned ravioli...?

***

end