blood. I know. I couldn’t abide him, first off. You do get used, though. You just have to hear the irony, cutting through the camp. Or hear him talk to a client. I’ve seen him on the phone; he turns it down to an ice-edge, but all the time he’s mugging furiously to us, queening it up like a panto dame. That’s it, it’s all performance. He only does it to annoy. Just don’t get annoyed, and you’ll be fine.”
“I think I might have annoyed him.”
“That works too. The boy has resources. Nigel, out of the kitchen, thank you very much. You too, Michael. This is a demonstration, not a masterclass – we’ll do hands-on, but later.”
～
So I perched on a stool in the doorway and watched him cook. Cubes of pork with green beans and spring onions, in a cream and mustard sauce; if not a masterclass it was absolutely a lesson for me, and I did learn. In my life, garlic came dry in granules, and you shook them from a jar. Of course I knew about cloves and bulbs and garlic-presses, which was why we would never have fresh garlic, because my mother didn’t run to gadgets. More trouble than they were worth, she said, just think of the washing-up. Perhaps it was a consequence of the migratory life we led, from kitchenette to primus stove to someone else’s kitchen, but my mother’s definition of a gadget seemed to run far and wide. She allowed a couple of battered saucepans, good for heating what came from tins; she did have a huge old frying-pan, for the all-day breakfasts that were her fallback position. Not much else.
Not like here. Here the kitchen was full of devices. Many of them looked new, but not unused. Kit did his cooking with a chopping-board, though, and a knife: which was how I learned that a garlic-press isn’t crucial after all, that the edge and the flat of a knife are all you need to address a clove of garlic.
“Pretty much all you need, full stop,” Kit averred, when I said that aloud, or something like it. “Give me a knife, a spoon and a pair of chopsticks, and I will travel the world. Don’t look so worried, I won’t make you eat with chopsticks tonight. I think I will cut everything up good and small, though. Fork-food, easy to manage. Whoever cooks gets to clean up after, that’s a house rule. And we all eat with Quin, that’s another; and it’s been a while since he made it to the dining-room. Gerard uses that as a study these days, the table’s all buried under papers. So we eat off our laps, and I can live without spillage.”
He fried cubes of cold cooked potato in butter, scattered them with parsley, divided everything up into huge white bowls. He told me to start carrying through to the front room, while he took a dish of dark brown jelly out of the fridge, scooped a ladleful into another bowl and began to chop it into neat little dice.
“What’s that?”
“Consommé, for Quin. It’s about all he can stomach at the moment. Luckily, he likes it. But then, who wouldn’t? Concentrated gravy, essence of beef with red wine and brandy for added bite: it’s like a whole Sunday dinner in a spoon, without all the bother of chewing. Want to try?”
He ran his finger round inside the ladle, and it came up with jelly clinging. I thought he was going to hold the finger out, for me to lick; but he slid it into his own mouth instead, and offered me the ladle. Monkey see, monkey do. So I did, and then I trotted back and forth with bowls and napkins, glasses and forks and wine while this dark, intense sliver of pure savour melted slowly and secretly on my tongue.
～
“Royal jelly,” Tony said, when he saw Quin’s supper. “Serve up enough of it, it turns a grub into a queen-bee.”
“Am I that grubby?” Quin sucked consommé off a teaspoon, slowly. “And do you mean fat and pale, or just unsanitary?”
“Neither of those, any more. You’re in transition. Which is why you have your drones,” and a sweep of his glass included all of us, “buzzing about
“I think I might have annoyed him.”
“That works too. The boy has resources. Nigel, out of the kitchen, thank you very much. You too, Michael. This is a demonstration, not a masterclass – we’ll do hands-on, but later.”
～
So I perched on a stool in the doorway and watched him cook. Cubes of pork with green beans and spring onions, in a cream and mustard sauce; if not a masterclass it was absolutely a lesson for me, and I did learn. In my life, garlic came dry in granules, and you shook them from a jar. Of course I knew about cloves and bulbs and garlic-presses, which was why we would never have fresh garlic, because my mother didn’t run to gadgets. More trouble than they were worth, she said, just think of the washing-up. Perhaps it was a consequence of the migratory life we led, from kitchenette to primus stove to someone else’s kitchen, but my mother’s definition of a gadget seemed to run far and wide. She allowed a couple of battered saucepans, good for heating what came from tins; she did have a huge old frying-pan, for the all-day breakfasts that were her fallback position. Not much else.
Not like here. Here the kitchen was full of devices. Many of them looked new, but not unused. Kit did his cooking with a chopping-board, though, and a knife: which was how I learned that a garlic-press isn’t crucial after all, that the edge and the flat of a knife are all you need to address a clove of garlic.
“Pretty much all you need, full stop,” Kit averred, when I said that aloud, or something like it. “Give me a knife, a spoon and a pair of chopsticks, and I will travel the world. Don’t look so worried, I won’t make you eat with chopsticks tonight. I think I will cut everything up good and small, though. Fork-food, easy to manage. Whoever cooks gets to clean up after, that’s a house rule. And we all eat with Quin, that’s another; and it’s been a while since he made it to the dining-room. Gerard uses that as a study these days, the table’s all buried under papers. So we eat off our laps, and I can live without spillage.”
He fried cubes of cold cooked potato in butter, scattered them with parsley, divided everything up into huge white bowls. He told me to start carrying through to the front room, while he took a dish of dark brown jelly out of the fridge, scooped a ladleful into another bowl and began to chop it into neat little dice.
“What’s that?”
“Consommé, for Quin. It’s about all he can stomach at the moment. Luckily, he likes it. But then, who wouldn’t? Concentrated gravy, essence of beef with red wine and brandy for added bite: it’s like a whole Sunday dinner in a spoon, without all the bother of chewing. Want to try?”
He ran his finger round inside the ladle, and it came up with jelly clinging. I thought he was going to hold the finger out, for me to lick; but he slid it into his own mouth instead, and offered me the ladle. Monkey see, monkey do. So I did, and then I trotted back and forth with bowls and napkins, glasses and forks and wine while this dark, intense sliver of pure savour melted slowly and secretly on my tongue.
～
“Royal jelly,” Tony said, when he saw Quin’s supper. “Serve up enough of it, it turns a grub into a queen-bee.”
“Am I that grubby?” Quin sucked consommé off a teaspoon, slowly. “And do you mean fat and pale, or just unsanitary?”
“Neither of those, any more. You’re in transition. Which is why you have your drones,” and a sweep of his glass included all of us, “buzzing about
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