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Dinner was prepared jointly by Katharine and Henry, the visiting guest. Aside from ingredients already in the house, Henry had also picked up some fresh produce and groceries at the supermarket on the way over.
Considering that Katharine was nearly ninety years old, it was naturally impossible to make everything heavy with oil or salt. In fact, even Katharine herself couldn't handle overly strong flavors anymore.
She simply liked to complain about being forbidden from eating this or that.
Just like the champagne Charlize had brought—Katharine took a relatively large sip for the first taste, but after that it was no more than moistening her lips. Most of the bottle ended up in Henry's and Charlize's stomachs.
Even without a nutritionist's license, Henry was more than capable of making food that was both delicious and nutritious.
Food that tasted good but was excessively salty, or food that was healthy but completely bland, only proved one thing: the employer hadn't paid the nutritionist or chef enough, so they produced this kind of wasteful nonsense.
Balancing flavor and nutrition wasn't difficult at all—it just required a bit of ingenuity and extra effort.
So the three friends, unrelated by blood, prepared a lavish Christmas dinner for themselves, even though Christmas hadn't officially arrived yet.
One defining feature of Henry's cooking was variety. Even if you took just one bite of each dish, it was enough to leave both ladies completely full.
There was no need to worry about leftovers either—Henry could sweep the entire table clean. He was just one step short of eating the plates and cutlery along with the food.
Although Charlize and Katharine had both witnessed Henry's appetite before, seeing it again firsthand still made these actresses—who had to watch their figures—feel… jealous.
Even if one of them was already semi-retired, age still restricted her from overeating.
Katharine watched the man elegantly stuffing food into his mouth—how those two words even belonged together was a mystery—and felt inexplicably irritated.
"Henry, don't you think you're overweight? How much do you weigh now?"
Casually eating and talking at the same time, Henry replied, "Two hundred pounds. I weighed myself not long ago. Seems fine, right? I don't even have a beer belly."
Unlike women, who tended to dodge questions about their weight, Henry was candid to the point of being infuriating.
And he knew his own body well. He wasn't the skinny, delicate type, nor was he a sumo-like giant. His build was closer to that of a heavyweight fighter—big-framed, but not the sculpted bodybuilder kind.
As for actual strength… considering the Kryptonian template, he might not be able to punch a planet apart, but leveling a mountain was no problem.
It was just that without sharply defined muscle lines, some people thought he looked fat. And in the eyes of women driven mad by jealousy, he was utterly hopeless…
In the eyes of the first Queen of Hollywood, Katharine Hepburn herself, he was no better than a scrawny chick. She slapped away Henry's hand as it reached for the last pudding, then discussed with Charlize how to split it between them.
You had to know—the pudding, as dessert, had been prepared one per person. No matter how insistently the two ladies claimed they were full, stuffed, or unable to eat another bite, they still refused to let the pudding go.
When they snatched the last pudding from Henry's aggrieved hands and shared it, their emotions swung wildly between heaven and hell—more intense than a sauna cycle.
They marveled at the dessert's sweetness while simultaneously panicking over its outrageous calories. Just one bite probably meant running a few extra miles tomorrow to burn it off… and then another bite… and another…
Henry sat to the side, watching the two women look remorseful after swallowing, only to appear blissfully happy whenever there was food in their mouths.
Their expressions alternated back and forth, the sheer range of facial acting making it impossible to deny—they truly were actresses worthy of the name.
Too bad the camera was back in Los Angeles. Otherwise, this moment should have been filmed and preserved forever.
After dinner, Henry and Charlize teamed up to wash the dishes. Then the three of them sat at the table as Katharine brought out an old bottle of red wine from her cellar.
The label was so aged it was barely legible. The old lady pushed the bottle toward Henry. As the visiting Kryptonian, he didn't hesitate and grabbed a corkscrew.
Old wines like this were notoriously difficult to open. With one careless move, the cork could crumble, and fragments might fall into the wine. While it wouldn't necessarily ruin the flavor, drinking wine full of cork debris definitely ruined the mood.
Fortunately, this was no big deal for Henry. Katharine's house had every tool imaginable. First, he took a thin, needle-like blade and gently scraped around the edge where the cork met the bottle, loosening the seal.
Then he slowly twisted the corkscrew's spiral into the aged cork. He couldn't go too fast—otherwise, the brittle cork would collapse.
Finally came the pull. It had to be steady, not rushed, not forceful. Otherwise, the corkscrew would come out holding only a loose chunk, leaving the rest of the cork stuck inside.
Henry performed the entire sequence slowly and meticulously. He had no choice—if he were rough, they'd be drinking cork-soaked wine.
Yet those slow movements were unexpectedly captivating. Katharine and Charlize both stared, unable to look away for even a moment.
When the cork came out cleanly, without leaving a trace, both women nearly cried out in delight.
As the cork was removed, the aroma of the wine reached Henry's nose. Under his superhuman sense of smell, this was the first time he had encountered a red wine with such a complex bouquet.
It wasn't an unpleasant odd scent. Rather, it was the fragrance of an aged wine that had folded all its flavors inward over time, fermenting into something new and refined.
Henry poured a small amount into his glass, swirled it, inhaled the aroma, and then took a sip—just like a seasoned sommelier.
"Mm. It still needs to breathe."
Charlize exclaimed in surprise, "Huh? I can already smell it from here. It still needs aerating?"
Henry poured a small amount into both of their glasses.
"Try the taste right after opening. This wine will be even better after it's decanted."
At the same time, he poured the rest into a decanter, holding the base of the bottle with his thumb resting in the indentation. The grape-colored liquid flowed down like silk.
All of this was to increase the wine's contact with air, speeding up oxidation so its flavors could fully unfold.
Even that first small sip left Charlize Theron in awe. She wasn't a sommelier, nor had she drunk many truly fine wines, but she could clearly sense how extraordinary what was in her glass was.
"Katharine, what kind of wine is this? It's amazing."
"Oh, a gift from Howard," Katharine replied. "They say it came from Hitler's wine cellar, seized by the Allies. It was supposedly commissioned by Napoleon himself to celebrate his coronation. Only five bottles were ever made."
…Henry's hand froze mid-pour. He forced a stiff smile as he looked at the old lady happily sniffing her empty glass.
Good grief. This wasn't just old wine—it was a historical artifact.
Napoleon was crowned in 1804. This year was 1994. Exactly one hundred and ninety years of aging.
Even without considering the age, the symbolism alone was priceless. Commissioned by Napoleon for his coronation, later collected by Hitler…
If this were auctioned off, trading it for several houses wouldn't be a problem at all.
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