The baseball coach and the man on the tomb causing grave offence to an insomniac public anxious to visit cemeteries while the rest of the populace was sleeping – I think of them both with distant affection, and of how they reminded me of life’s petty misfortunes; of the traps awaiting those of us who can neither curb our tongues nor suppress our sudden, inflammatory desires.
Jam Today
The kitchen was mine at last, now that David’s brilliant reign of culinary tyranny was over. We had moved it to the top floor of the house some years earlier, revelling in its spaciousness and the light that flooded in on all but the darkest winter days. David had bought a large gas cooker that resembled in design a small cinema organ. (I half-expected music, rather than gas, to come out of it when the switches were turned on.) It had two temperamental doors that swung open whenever the oven reached a certain level of heat. The doors were ‘fixed’ by a succession of repairmen, who unscrewed them, refitted them, realigned them and even, on one occasion, replaced them. Yet their handiwork was to no permanent avail, since there would continue to be a terrible moment when the doors, having behaved themselves for weeks, decided not to stay closed. David would shout and curse, and an old chair would have to be jammed against the doors, and Circe would let out a single bark and dart downstairs, not wanting to be involved in the drama.
High drama was an essential feature of David’s cooking. Tension mounted as soon as he approached the stove. Nothing less than complete perfection satisfied him. The recipes that most appealed to him were elaborate, requiring enormous reserves of patience to prepare, and there were times – not too many – when his patience was tried to breaking-point. To stay calm, he often cooked to the accompaniment of The Marriage of Figaro, to Handel’s Messiah and to Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Silence was not to be countenanced, except when he was studying a new, and ever more complicated, dish. In his final months, he created meals for rich customers who sent couriers to collect them. And sometimes, if he was well enough, he went to their houses and businesses to oversee the preparation of the central masterpiece on cookers blessed with unproblematic doors.
The kitchen became a quiet place in the spring of 1986. My book was finished and already in proof. I was a cook again, and pleased that I could entertain friends with dishes I hadn’t made in an eternity. I discovered recipes that excited me in books by Claudia Roden, Alice Waters and the refreshingly eccentric Patience Gray, whose Honey from a Weed can also be read for its insights into literature, painting and sculpture. David had only ever allowed me to make shepherd’s pie, the ‘comfort food’ he liked best, but now – grieving and lonely – I was free to prepare whatever I desired. The Mexican Garlic Soup in Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook; the Spicy Prawns in Claudia Roden’s A New Book of Middle Eastern Food, and the wild concoction of aubergines, onions, tomatoes and herbs Patience Gray chanced upon in a Greek village – these became, and still are, favourites with my cherished friends. They would be joined by the glorious Russian Raspberry Tart from Margaret Costa’s excellent Four Seasons Cookery Book.
I had time to fill, or perhaps kill, and Circe helped me fill it. Each morning she would propel me to the park, where I frequently had to throw the ball for as much as two hours. She had the sheepdog’s habit of running in a circle, cleverly retrieving the ball from unexpected angles, catching it between her teeth while still in motion. Passers-by would stop to admire and applaud.
Other dogs achieved exhaustion fairly rapidly, but not Circe. I marvelled at, and was sometimes exasperated by, her unflagging liveliness. She seemed to be willing herself not to get tired. It was only when she flopped on to the grass, panting heavily, that I knew she was ready to go home. Or was she? As soon as we were outside the park she began to draw back on the lead. The beast who had towed me earlier now had to be dragged homewards. This was a double spectacle the neighbours found diverting – that of a man being pulled along the street by an eager dog, and of the same man trying to coax the same, suddenly reluctant, dog into following him.
I was in a state of blank despair on the afternoon I decided to occupy myself by making jam. I went out and bought plums, raisins, blanched almonds and a bottle of dark rum. I cut the plums into halves, and put the stones in a small saucepan, covering them with half-a-pint of water. I boiled the stones for ten minutes, and drained the liquid through a sieve. This I poured over the plums and raisins I had placed in a larger pan. I let the mixture simmer over a low heat. When the fruit had softened, I took the pan off the gas and added the requisite amount of sugar, which I stirred in until it was completely dissolved. I put the pan back on the ring and watched it carefully, stirring at intervals to prevent the jam thickening too quickly or getting burnt. Concentration, of a satisfyingly mindless kind, was necessary. I concentrated on the task I had chosen. I removed the pan from the heat and threw in the finely chopped almonds and four tablespoons of rum. More stirring was needed, and then the glistening jam was ready for the pots I had previously sterilized. I tasted it when it had cooled a little, and realized I was in possession of a new, unanticipated talent. To stave off depression, or to lighten it at least, I had only to go to the stove and perfect my skills as a jam-maker.