asked me my name, and when I told him, he repeated it.
“Harriet Purcell. It has a nice, old-fashioned sound.” “Yes, sir,” I answered, stiff as a post.
Green eyes are mysterious. In romantic novels they’re always the colour of emeralds, but in my experience they’re more of a swampy green, changeful. My eyes are black, you can’t easily tell the pupil from the iris, which I daresay is why I like his eyes so much-different from mine, but not opposite. He continued to sit looking at me, quietly smiling, for long enough to make me feel the skin of my face heat up, then he slid off the desk and wandered to the door in that wonderfully absent way surgeons do, as if external forces propel them from place to place.
“Goodbye, Harriet,” he said as he went out.
Phew! He must be six-three, because I have to look up. Oh, what a lovely man! But Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz is not going to trap me with those wretched cards!
And then tonight I had my first cooking lesson. Klaus had all the ingredients ready when I knocked on his door a bit after eight; I’d heard the sound of his violin and knew that meant he wouldn’t mind if I was early. He plays like a virtuoso, classical stuff full of yearning. I’m not up on classical stuff, but if what Klaus plays is anything to go by, I’m going to buy whatever LPs he cares to suggest. It leaves Billy Vaughan for dead.
We made Beef Stroganoff with spaetzle (I asked Klaus to spell it-just as well, because it isn’t in my Oxford), and I think I’ve died and gone to heaven. He showed me how to slice the half-frozen beef fillet very thinly, how to slice the mushrooms and the onions, gave me a lecture about keeping my knives sharp with a steel. The spaetzle have the same composition as Granny’s dumplings, only he forces the dough through a colander into boiling salted water and cuts it off regularly to make what look like short, thick macaronis.
“Fry the meat lightly and quickly, put it in your pot, fry the onions golden, add them to your pot, fry the mushrooms until they’re soft, add them to your pot. Heat the frying pan until the drippings are brown, then add a dash of cognac.”
When he put the cognac in (he sneers at the old threestar), it hissed and bubbled, evaporated. “Put some fresh cream in the pan before you start with the sour cream, Harriet. If you do not, your sauce will curdle as it nears its boiling point. I for one prefer my food piping hot, so I use fresh cream first to stop the sour cream curdling. Squash
the sour cream into bits, then use a French whisk to stir as you heat-it takes all the lumps out. Then pour your sauce into the pot, mix it all up, and voila! Beef Stroganoff.”
The whole meal took less than half an hour to prepare, and I have never tasted anything that good. “Do not put tomato paste or pickles in it,” he scolded, as if I was going to dash off and commit these crimes immediately.
“The way I make Stroganoff is the right way, the only way.” He thought for a minute, then said, “Except for the cognac, but cognac is excusable. Keep your flavours simple and make sure that what you use in a sauce does not camouflage the main ingredients. With fillet of beef, mushrooms and onions, who needs disguising flavours?”
End of lesson. Next week we’re going to make Chicken Paprika-on sweet Hungarian paprika! We had a bit of a squabble about who was going to pay for the raw materials-he insisted, I wouldn’t let him. In the end we agreed to split the cost down the middle.
Next Saturday I’m going looking for knives, a steel and a French whisk. And I can’t wait to tell Mum how to make lump-free gravy! Stir it with a French whisk.
Friday
March 11th, 1960
I refuse to believe those cards!
Today we had a head injury day. I don’t know why things fall out like that, they just do. On any one day we
tend to get more of a certain kind of patient than others. And today it was heads, heads, heads.
Chris was still there when Demetrios the
“Harriet Purcell. It has a nice, old-fashioned sound.” “Yes, sir,” I answered, stiff as a post.
Green eyes are mysterious. In romantic novels they’re always the colour of emeralds, but in my experience they’re more of a swampy green, changeful. My eyes are black, you can’t easily tell the pupil from the iris, which I daresay is why I like his eyes so much-different from mine, but not opposite. He continued to sit looking at me, quietly smiling, for long enough to make me feel the skin of my face heat up, then he slid off the desk and wandered to the door in that wonderfully absent way surgeons do, as if external forces propel them from place to place.
“Goodbye, Harriet,” he said as he went out.
Phew! He must be six-three, because I have to look up. Oh, what a lovely man! But Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz is not going to trap me with those wretched cards!
And then tonight I had my first cooking lesson. Klaus had all the ingredients ready when I knocked on his door a bit after eight; I’d heard the sound of his violin and knew that meant he wouldn’t mind if I was early. He plays like a virtuoso, classical stuff full of yearning. I’m not up on classical stuff, but if what Klaus plays is anything to go by, I’m going to buy whatever LPs he cares to suggest. It leaves Billy Vaughan for dead.
We made Beef Stroganoff with spaetzle (I asked Klaus to spell it-just as well, because it isn’t in my Oxford), and I think I’ve died and gone to heaven. He showed me how to slice the half-frozen beef fillet very thinly, how to slice the mushrooms and the onions, gave me a lecture about keeping my knives sharp with a steel. The spaetzle have the same composition as Granny’s dumplings, only he forces the dough through a colander into boiling salted water and cuts it off regularly to make what look like short, thick macaronis.
“Fry the meat lightly and quickly, put it in your pot, fry the onions golden, add them to your pot, fry the mushrooms until they’re soft, add them to your pot. Heat the frying pan until the drippings are brown, then add a dash of cognac.”
When he put the cognac in (he sneers at the old threestar), it hissed and bubbled, evaporated. “Put some fresh cream in the pan before you start with the sour cream, Harriet. If you do not, your sauce will curdle as it nears its boiling point. I for one prefer my food piping hot, so I use fresh cream first to stop the sour cream curdling. Squash
the sour cream into bits, then use a French whisk to stir as you heat-it takes all the lumps out. Then pour your sauce into the pot, mix it all up, and voila! Beef Stroganoff.”
The whole meal took less than half an hour to prepare, and I have never tasted anything that good. “Do not put tomato paste or pickles in it,” he scolded, as if I was going to dash off and commit these crimes immediately.
“The way I make Stroganoff is the right way, the only way.” He thought for a minute, then said, “Except for the cognac, but cognac is excusable. Keep your flavours simple and make sure that what you use in a sauce does not camouflage the main ingredients. With fillet of beef, mushrooms and onions, who needs disguising flavours?”
End of lesson. Next week we’re going to make Chicken Paprika-on sweet Hungarian paprika! We had a bit of a squabble about who was going to pay for the raw materials-he insisted, I wouldn’t let him. In the end we agreed to split the cost down the middle.
Next Saturday I’m going looking for knives, a steel and a French whisk. And I can’t wait to tell Mum how to make lump-free gravy! Stir it with a French whisk.
Friday
March 11th, 1960
I refuse to believe those cards!
Today we had a head injury day. I don’t know why things fall out like that, they just do. On any one day we
tend to get more of a certain kind of patient than others. And today it was heads, heads, heads.
Chris was still there when Demetrios the
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