by Jackie Kay
For Denise Else
We writers may think we invent too much –
but reality is worse
every time.
FLAUBERT
It really happened in really real life.
ALI SMITH
Contents
Reality, Reality
These are not my clothes
The First Lady of Song
The Pink House
Grace and Rose
Bread Bin
Doorstep
Hadassah
The White Cot
Mind Away
Owl
The Last of the Smokers
Mini Me
Mrs Vadnie Marlene Sevlon
The Winter Visitor
Reality, Reality
Now that – that is bursting with flavour. I’m getting ginger, and then I’m getting lime coming in at the end there. That is a sensation. That is delicious. I could eat up the whole plate. Today, I told myself I was going to have a positive day. Today was day one of My Big Week. I got up early and scrubbed the face with cold water. I was shallow of breath due to the excitement. I couldn’t stop talking to myself. I couldn’t quieten down. Here’s the voice, going duh duh duh duh duhhh non-stop. Can you win? Have you got what it takes? Are you going to shoot yourself in the foot? Get egg on your face? Hmmmmmn? Only the extremely talented survive. It’s all about separating the wheat from the chaff. Only the ones with that special extra ingredient, sorrowful as sorrel, mysterious as saffron, wise as sage, magic as a glittering sheet of gelatine, only the crème de la crème rises to the surface! COOKING doesn’t GET tougher THAN this! I was shouting now into the mirror. Big voice! Big flavours! I rinsed the face, enthusiastically again and again and again. I dabbed the face dry and confessed soberly to my dark-eyed reflection: We’re looking for elegance.
But truth be told, I was feeling a bit ropy on account of drinking too much whisky the night before. I’ve been drinking whisky because it’s good exercise for my palate. Me drinking a different whisky is like an artist trying a new colour. It’s part of my culinary training, sniffing and detecting. This one was a top dram – 73.32 – and, just to perfect my expertise, I sniffed several times and swirled before saying to myself, ‘Stef, what can you smell?’ I was watching my 24 box set and I turned it down because Jack Bauer was putting me off my stride. I can smell polished wood, polished wood and maybe pear drops. Suddenly, there was Ali and me sharing sweets in the park with the burn near the house I grew up in. I had pear drops and she had Italian creams, which only our Italian cafe seemed to do, exquisite sweets – a kind of fudge with a thick, dark chocolate bottom – and we both had shining eyes, girls’ eyes, excited to be in each other’s company. Maybe that’s it; it’s downhill all the way from then. There’s nothing like the old excitement of girls. Where did they go, the old pals of the babbling brook, and I was swirling the whisky and getting a kind of crème brûlée flavour sneaked in at the end, or maybe vanilla custard. I had three doubles to be sure. Yep. Orange peels and vanilla custard. Then I staggered up the steep stairs to bed, and the whisky roared me to sleep. It wasn’t a lullaby. It was loud, a sailor singing speed bonny boat at the top of his voice. Finally, I think I landed up on Skye and fell asleep remembering the time when I went to the south of Skye on holiday, a cottage near the Aird of Sleat, and I met a man who said, ‘Have you been to the north of the island?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ and he said, ‘I dinna like it up there, it’s much too commercialized.’ And he was talking about three shops! Or the time when I was in a pub in Orkney and England was playing Germany and England was winning four to one, would you believe, and a wee man’s voice shouted out, ‘C’mon, Germany!’ and everyone laughed. I went to sleep thinking about that, and my big day, which is now today. I said, ‘C’mon, Stef! You’ve some day ahead. Get yourself some shut-eye, do yourself a favour.’
Well, so here we are on the first day of My Big Week, and I’m absolutely determined to excel. But first things first! Feed the dog breakfast! I haven’t yet stretched to gourmet meals for my mutt, so I get out a tin and open it, absolutely no point sniffing the tin for notes of offal. It’s an awful smell, pet food. I take the dog round the block. Can’t wait to get back to my kitchen! I’ve got a stopwatch, a set of kitchen scales, a new KitchenAid, a heavy-bottomed pot, a sharp knife, a good chopping board. Cost me a wee fortune, but money well spent. It cost much less than the five-day trip to Florence I’d been thinking about, or the seven days to Lake Garda. I reckon I’m bang on the money: holiday at home is the new going away. Going anywhere nice? somebody at work asked me. I’m having a staycation, I said. I’ve taken a week off work. Well, I’m sick of paying a single supplement to go on holiday on my own. I mean what nonsense! Hello? Pay extra for a single bed? Huh? What kind of person thought that up? Did they sit down one afternoon with a cup of tea, and think to themselves, Aha! Let the recently bereaved, the dumped, the chucked and the lonely pay more, they’re a waste of space? Don’t get me started! One of the reasons I’m putting myself through the HEATS is to see if the HEATS might control my RANTS and stop me veering off the subject. Focus, Chef Stef, this is what is asked of you today. Extreme focus; absolute commitment. You’ve got twenty minutes. There is absolutely no room for error. Let’s Cook! – the voice of the greasy-haired one. I am good at doing his voice. I frighten myself with my own brilliant mimicry! Talk about intimidating. Let’s Cook!
Timer set for twenty minutes, no cheating. Twenty minutes exactly. Was tempted to give myself twenty-three, but what’s the point in cheating on myself? It’s like pretending to the weighing scales you’ve lost more than you’ve lost. The scales know and so do you. I crack three eggs on the dot of twenty and swiftly whisk them. (I might develop upper-arm muscles as a side benefit.) I chop mushrooms, parsley, and red onion. I roast a red pepper. Ten minutes! I grate some Gruyère cheese, and slice some soda bread. I sauté the mushrooms and the parsley and the red onion together. Five minutes! I grill the tomatoes. I skin and then slice the red pepper. They are all ready! I slip the eggs into the pan and cook on a medium to hot heat, then I add the separate ingredients and fold over. Thirty seconds! Plate up! I stand back from my plate, quickly, sneakily, sprinkling parsley over the omelette as my timer rings. Stand back from your bench! Time’s up! I was out of breath. OMG, it all mattered so much!
I sit down at my table, ten thirty a.m., a little later than planned, to eat the first HEAT meal of the day. I’ve made a fresh pot of Earl Grey tea, fresh leaves, note, not tea bags, sniff, and some soda-bread toast. I don’t have time to look at the morning newspaper and see what’s going on in the world. I’m sweating, anxious, about what is going to be said. You’ve played it safe with an omelette, the fat-faced friendly one says. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed. And what a lot of work you gave yourself. Nice, but not very inspiring. Where’s the flamboyancy in an omelette? Ah but what an omelette, the greasy-haired one says. This must be the best omelette I have ever eaten in my entire life! As he enthuses, I realize it’s his approval I want most of all. I’m getting the Gruyère flavour, that lovely warm roast red pepper. I suddenly sink and flag, the air going out of me like an imperfect soufflé. I’m depressed with my lack of ambition. An omelette! Call yourself a chef, Stef, and that’s what you produce for the semi-finals? You better smarten up, girl, or you’re going home. The Girl needs to push herself. The Girl needs to raise her game. I need to get to the shops, pronto, for lunch and dinner’s ingredients. Some holiday this is turning out to be! Walkies, I say to my dog, who is the only one who seems to listen to me these days. She wags her tail and sits by the front door whilst I double-check things. Now, now, Stef, think positive, you can still turn yourself around. There’s still time for self-improvement. I try to walk fas
t, but I can’t walk fast because I’m carrying fifteen stone, which since I tried my new ‘Whisky Diet’ is a lot less than I was a few weeks ago, when I was sixteen and a half stone, before I was promoted to the semi-finals. Low carbs – that’s the secret. That’s why the whisky is a necessity. No carbohydrates in whisky. Little-known fact, that. People out there don’t know the difference between carbs and calories, but don’t get me started.
I walk into my local fish shop, Out of the Blue. I know they know I live alone. If you buy one tuna steak on a Wednesday and one red mullet on a Thursday and splash out and buy one sushi and one piece of halibut on a Saturday, there’s no hiding the absolute extent of your aloneness. Sometimes the man throws in tails of organically smoked haddock out of sympathy. Once he gave me a free free-range chicken which had lost both its legs, but other than that was in pretty good nick. Didn’t chickens used to fly? I couldn’t tell if it lost its legs whilst still alive or not. Don’t let’s go there. I buy a piece of halibut and a hake steak in Out of the Blue; some fresh spinach, rocket, pear and hazelnuts in the Unicorn, a small piece of Gorgonzola in the Barbican. It seems silly facing the long queue and taking my number, number thirty-four, for four ounces of Gorgonzola but I am emphatic about sticking to my chosen ingredients. A lot of people veer dramatically away from the shopping list; not me.
I take my dog through the Beech Road park and on the way back I bump into another dog owner who is in quite a state. I don’t know her name but I know her dog’s. She says, ‘I can’t remember when I last got Gatsby wormed. I’m not sure if it’s April she’s due or now. If it’s April I’d rather wait, last year I kept a diary. A dog diary!’ She laughs at herself like she is some kind of genius – ‘But I forgot, and chucked it out, not thinking I’d need to check the dates for this year.’ She throws her eyes up in the air like she is tossing a ball for her dog to fetch, and then she walks off. I am getting used to my only real intimacy coming from the confessions of dog-walkers. It’s amazing the things people tell me. A man stopped to chat the other day, a complete stranger with a Great Dane. He pointed to the slobbering big-eyed dog and said, ‘She gets jealous if I get a new woman. She’s driven all the girls out, even the missus. She’s the missus now, eh, eh?’ I couldn’t tell if he was proud or defeated. He shrugged his shoulders then he hurried off through the woods that lead you to the river Mersey, which stretches all the way from here to Liverpool.
Today, I’ve really not got time to stand about chatting to dog-owners. ‘I’m up against the clock,’ I say and hurry past the woman who usually stops whilst out walking her Scottish terrier and her Zimmer. ‘Okay,’ she says, her hands resting on the Zimmer. ‘Nice day today!’ ‘Lovely, yes,’ I say. ‘Doing anything nice?’ she says. ‘I’m cooking cordon bleu! I’m in the semi-finals!’ I tell her. She’s the first person I’ve told. ‘It’s costing me more than the vet, all the expensive ingredients, but worth it!’ ‘Mmmm,’ she says and looks a bit envious, or is it dubious, I’m not sure. I bid her farewell. For all I know the heights of her culinary expectations are a tin of Heinz Tomato Soup, followed by a tin of Ambrosia Creamed Rice.
Stop it, Chef Stef! You’ve turned into a well big snob since you were picked for the semi-finals! I hope you’re not going to leave your old friends behind? Of course not! I hurry through the small park with my Tibetan terrier following behind me. The tender yellow and purple crocuses are out and the modest white snowdrops. My dog stops to sniff the crocuses, pisses, then sniffs again (her equivalent to Chanel No. 5). The shy spring is here. What a relief! The trees are still bare but the leaves will be coming. I hope the schnauzer we often bump into is not coming out today. Damn. My dog has stopped for a poo and I get out my plastic bag. I wait for a second while it cools; it’s the warmth that bothers me most. When I pick it up, I try and think of what the consistency is most like, bread dough maybe, anyone? Clootie dumpling in the pillow? – and in this way, I’m always thinking culinary thoughts even when performing a most unpleasant task. This, as it were, allows me to work on the job! I dispose of the plastic bag in the red dog bin. But the smell, I can’t really stretch to comparing the smell to anything. Put it this way, it’s not exactly fragrant. That’s enough, Stef; let your dog have her modesty. My dog is a bit embarrassed that I have to pick up her doo-doo, because she’s a pernickety wee thing. If she were to hear my inside thoughts, she’d be mortified.
I arrive back home. Nearly time to start the timer and the lunch. It is one o’clock. No time for the lunchtime news. I am the news. I am the rolling news. I have lost a stone and a half and have started my own HEATS. I could perfect my style and earn a fortune. What would I call it? The Whisky Diet? (That would attract fat alkies!) You Diet and Dog Diets Too? (That would lure obese people who uncannily resemble their obese canines.) For lunch, I’m serving a watercress soup to start followed by a lovely piece of halibut with a Welsh rarebit topping and a spinach, pine nut and raisin salad. I’m using up the Gruyère from the morning omelette. I ask myself: What are we looking for today from you, Stef, do you think? A beautiful plate of food, I answer myself. I need to cook my heart out today. Need to take risks! It is do or die today. Let’s Cook! I’m not hungry actually, but I must stick to the gruelling schedule, or I can’t call myself anything.
I mix a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, two tablespoons of double cream, a cup of grated Gruyère into a paste, spread it on my halibut and put the halibut in the oven at 200 degrees. I set my timer for twenty minutes. DO NOT OVERCOOK FISH! Then I toast the pine nuts, but burn them a little. HELP! Then I soak the raisins but for too long – they look like the wrinkled eyes of very small, very old animals, beavers maybe, or badgers. I taste my watercress soup having whizzed it through the new KitchenAid that I bought specially for this special week, and cheap at the price too in a way, less than a week on the Costa Brava, or nine nights in Morocco, which would have been nice since I love Moroccan food. No, here’s me, bravely à la Costa o Solo Mio, and soon when I am truly brilliant I will be certainly inviting people CHEZ moi and certainly will stun them with my big bold flavours and elegant presentation. Stand back from your bench! That watercress soup is so green, the greasy-haired one says. That is delicious, the fat-faced friendly one says. That green reminds you of allotments, childhood, it’s as fresh as spring. I’m getting that good iron. I mean, phwoar! Phwoar! I nod and look sage and try to hide my superior smile. I imagine the faces of the other contestants turning an envious green. Now for the main. Presentation could be better. That spinach is looking a bit sloppy and has left a trail of water on the plate. You’ve let yourself down! Flavour good. Could do with more seasoning. I’m getting the sweetness of the raisins, but “those pine nuts . . .” This fish, nice idea with the Welsh rarebit topping, but a bit of a waste of a lovely fish, halibut.
I don’t agree with you, I say quietly. At this level, you need to be better. You are going home, Stef. Sorry. You’re going home. You don’t know what you’re talking about, I say again. You’re just a jumped-up pair of idiots. You wouldn’t know a good meal if it slapped you in the face. You don’t even like good food! Is it because I didn’t do snail porridge? Too right, I’m a bad loser! I feel myself being frogmarched round the kitchen. Someone shouts, Cut! Take her off set! I can hardly breathe. Some holiday this is for me. The stress! The tension! I’ve failed. I haven’t made the final. I haven’t realized my dream. I’m devastated. Gutted like a school of snapper. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has slipped through my fishing net. I see myself in the sad green room, not the dream room. I’m frank with the camera. There’s no way I’m stopping cooking, I say to the little light in my kitchen that is really the eye of the burglar alarm but could just as easily be the eye of the watching world. No way. I’ve got my dreams. I could still turn up trumps and deliver the goods. Then they’d be the ones with egg on their face, ketchup on their pants – tossers. Complete tossers. It’s always the men they pick. How come the men get to be chefs and the women get to be cooks? It’s a disgrace.
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I take out my fine bottle of whisky. Make that a double. I’ve just narrowly missed the finals, whatdya expect? I was that close. Give me a break. Is this you drowning your sorrows, Chef Stef? Too right it is. Get it down! Pear drops? Teardrops, more like. Crème brûlée? Cry baby. I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. My face looks like a summer pudding. I’ve got myself all upset. A voice whispers, You’ve one more chance. It doesn’t involve anyone but you. Let’s Cook. Come on, now, love. It’s a gentle voice, lovely, not my own. I think it sounds like the voice of my dead mother, but I can’t be sure because I’ve forgotten her voice. I wish I could remember her voice exactly. What was it like? Like fresh spring water babbling down the Fintry hills.
It is four hours and three minutes since I last cooked, and five hours and ten minutes since I last walked the dog, and one hour and six minutes since I last had a snooze and now it is time to prove myself. My eyelids are swollen from crying, like little slugs. My face is all blotchy. But it’s not about looks, being a chef, only your food needs to look beautiful really. I get out my blue and white striped apron that I bought specially, but had forgotten buying. Silly me! I tie a knot, confidently. Lucky apron. For starters, pear fried in ground coriander with hazelnuts, rocket and Gorgonzola salad with a sherry dressing. For main: hake steak baked with an onion and lemon-rind confit, new potatoes with mint, green beans with tomatoes, garlic and basil. To finish: a chocolate soufflé with raspberries on the side, a shortbread biscuit, followed by a small whisky. Make that a double. Make it 73.32, The Scots Malt Whisky Society. Even though I don’t live in Scotland any more, I wouldn’t drink anything but Scottish whisky. Good malt is allowed for dessert. I say so, and it’s my rules. This is me here doing this right now. I’m methodical. I tidy as I go along. They’d be proud, but the hell with them. My presentation is a sensation, back of the net! and the idiots have missed it. Their loss! Everything is delicious. That is one plate of food, that is one plate of food. That fish is cooked to perfection. Perfect. Lovely, elegant dish. Well done! Phwoar! Phwoar! That is outstanding! The girl can cook. Well done! I put the fish skin in the bin, and start on the chocolate soufflé, rich, velvety, darkly enigmatic chocolate soufflé, seriously tart raspberries. Charming, absolutely delightful. I knock back the whisky. That is one cheeky wee whisky, inspired, absolutely, inspired and inspiring. Now that, that is almost alchemy! I mean like, wow!