The Midsummer Garden

by Kirsty Manning

  Eduardo and Pedro told her she was not to think of herself as preparing plates of desserts: she was ‘assembling landscapes’ or ‘daily montages’. Eduardo’s English was excellent and he talked a lot about nostalgia for the food of his childhood: ‘the perfect crisp apple’, ‘the thickest, creamiest ice cream’, ‘a sweet red toffee apple at the fair’. Every day for weeks Pip deconstructed Eduardo’s Basque dream and rebuilt it on a white plate. Or a sheet of slate. Or a hand-hewn bowl made of ancient oak. This meticulous presentation was so unlike the simple French home-style fare Dan served up in Hobart.

  She was surprised and pleased in the first week how much she had to concentrate to keep up. At the same time, Pip couldn’t help wondering if simplicity was perfection, why were they working sixteen hours a day to deconstruct it?

  While the produce seemed to be the best available locally, Pip noticed the wastage right through the different sections. She had a prime view of the area where they prepped and plated the mains. Species of squid she didn’t recognise, mackerel, scallops—the trays were so abundant with shiny seafood that the kitchen felt like a slaughterhouse some days. A side of spring lamb would be butchered from the vertebrae to the top ribs for the tender cutlets, but the backstraps and lower ribs were tossed aside. A prime shoulder of aged beef would be sectioned and cooked in a sous vide. All the meats, veals, fresh fish, chicken breasts would be sliced into perfect sections and then cryovaced in plastic. Pip could understand the hype about cooking meat at the perfect temperature, but when she had asked Eduardo about all the food wastage he was dismissive, saying it went to a charity in the old part of town. When Pip asked him the following week why it was necessary to use so much plastic, and if they couldn’t find an alternative method to sous vide, she was met with stony silence.

  The dozen chefs in her section had stopped moving for a moment.

  Pip thought she was about to get the sack, but she ploughed on optimistically: ‘Eduardo, the oceans are full of rubbish. I see it every day when I swim. Plastic suffocates the fish and this stuff is everywhere. Do you really need to use it?’ Eduardo had curled his lip, shrugged his shoulders, then turned and left the kitchen. He’d clearly understood her point, but the perfect slice of veal was worth more to him than the oceans.

  Dan would be mortified, Pip thought. She thought back to the thrifty Hobart kitchen and nose-to-tail approach. Eduardo’s kitchen took only the best part of each ingredient, and tossed the rest. At Azure, a thimbleful of apple essence was extracted from the local cultivar and the pulp went in the bin. They didn’t even compost. Crazy.

  ‘Molecular gastronomy. That’s not even a real thing, is it?’ she’d needled Pedro one day when all five dessert station cooks were in the test kitchen being shown by Eduardo how to make a strawberry and oak bark emulsion. ‘All food is made of molecules. It’s not even a proper science.’ She’d noticed Pedro stiffen in his white apron and chef’s hat, but then he had shrugged and walked away, though he’d turned and winked at her over his shoulder. At least he had a sense of humour about it all—the other chefs were so damn earnest; pompous, even.

  Pedro had disappeared through automatic sliding doors into the climate-controlled spice room. After a minute, he poked his head out, and beckoned to Pip.

  Joining him, Pip found herself in an oversized larder. The lino floor was bright green, and the stainless-steel racks were filled floor to ceiling with neatly labelled plastic takeaway containers.

  She walked over to one wall and started reading the labels aloud: ‘Ajwain, akudjura—’

  ‘That’s Australian.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’ Pip continued: ‘Alexanders, alkanet—’

  ‘For red colour.’

  ‘Right. Never heard of that either. Alligator pepper! Should I even ask? Allspice—I’ve used that before, when cooking Chinese. Angelica, anise, anise hyssop—is there a big difference between the two? Who has two different types of anise?’ Pip went on, mesmerised. ‘Artemisia … wormwood. I know that one because my mum grows herbs. She plants it near the chook pen.’

  ‘Chook?’ Pedro looked confused.

  ‘Sorry: chickens. Anyway, Mum swears it keeps the lice off them.’

  Pedro lifted two plastic containers off the shelf. In the first were dried twigs, in the second a ground powder. He said: ‘We use this herb to flavour liqueurs. Have you ever heard of absinthe? Makes you hallucinate.’

  Pip gave a chuckle. ‘It sounds all very Harry Potter.’

  He held up a silky silver stem of Artemisia and the fine hairs shimmered under the down light. Pip could smell the familiar stalky smoky woodiness—far sweeter than sage—and remembered the old recipes she’d found in the copper pots. She should ask Megs to send her a copy. They were still sitting in the specimen jar, shoved in a box somewhere in Megs’s shed. Along with her sadness.

  Pedro dimmed the lights a little and when Pip looked up at the ceiling a delicate curled feather danced across the white. Pip watched delicate patterns stretch across the wall—reminding her of wedding lace she would likely never wear. Pedro moved the stem, and it swirled across the roof and green floor, wrapping around her legs. There was no need for Artemisia, or absinthe. Pip felt for a moment she was stuck in a kaleidoscope.

  Pedro whispered as he watched the feathery strands twirl across the ceiling. ‘Artemisia. Mother of Herbs, the ancients used to call her. Strong. Bitter. Beautiful.’

  ‘Why do you have it in a restaurant, if it is bitter?’

  ‘Pip.’ He still pronounced it ‘Peep’ and she found it sweet. ‘Have you not learned anything here with us? Food is about nostalgia.’ Pedro gave her a disappointed look and switched the light back to full strength. ‘A tiny speck is meant to increase appetite, get the digestion happening. Great for a restaurant! And goodwill. Hallucinogenic. Antibiotic. The witches used to say that wearing a sprig would ward off the evil spirits. It is powerful too. Witches brewed it to boost fertility. So you see, something bitter and dangerous can also bring a new life. New perspectives.’

  Pip looked hard at the green floor and tried not to cry. Was there something in the thousand containers here in the spice room that could wash away her bitterness? She shivered. Sixteen degrees was way too cold. She left the spice room. Fast.

  Pip was starting to feel cold on her final lap of Zurriola, thinking about that afternoon in the spice room with Pedro: green floors, Artemisia …

  She was interrupted by a familiar slicing through the waves over her left shoulder. Dammit! It was too late. Pip turned to hear an angry volley of incomprehensible words bouncing across the water. She tried to duck-dive but the fibreglass surfboard clipped her shoulder and sprang back as the rider fell sideways to pull off the wave and jerk the board back to avoid injuring her. This oceanic collision was all happening too fast. They were both dumped by a right-hander and the rubber cord, board and legs became tangled as both Pip and the surfer tried to figure out which way to the surface. Water filled Pip’s nostrils, her ears, and her mouth was bitter with the taste of the salt. Still underwater and feeling like she was in a washing machine spin cycle, Pip opened her eyes, caught a glimpse of light and kicked hard to get to it and push her head above the swell. Her lungs were burning, her ears ached and her legs felt weak. Her shoulder hurt where the surfboard had clipped it. But she broke free of the surface, mucus and water streaming from her nose, trying to catch her breath. The errant surfer was back on his board, paddling away from her with not even a backward glance to see if she was okay. She kicked her legs hard and smacked the top of the water.

  The strong taste of salt was so intense Pip couldn’t wipe it with several swipes of her tongue and a mouth filling with saliva. Was it possible to have degrees of salt? The blow to her shoulder had made her feel a bit woozy but Pip focused on the idea that the salty water of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel was much sweeter. And softer. She remembered clambering onto the sandstone ledges around Stinkpot and North West Bay, and collecting the piles of salt left there when the
water had evaporated. The salt on her tongue right now, at Zurriola, could clear your throat. Like eucalyptus oil. It was that strong.

  Pip stopped drifting and started a full-throttle freestyle to shore. That’s it, she thought. I’m lacking that intense saltiness in my dish. It needs to fill the mouth with dryness, and then the sweetness and vegetables will take it away. It needs to be an assault on the palate. I’ve been too soft. My dish lacks punch. I’ve been a complete wuss.

  With that realisation, she used a slow six-beat kick and strong steady stroke to the end of the breakwater before bodysurfing to shore.

  Tonight, she was going to blow Eduardo, Pedro and the whole Azure team away with her take on Zurriola.

  Chapter 17

  Château de Boschaud, Midsummer 1487

  Artemisia looked at the sugared coriander seeds spread across the larder floor and sighed at the mess. She slipped the gift from Andreas back into her pocket to open later and used the small willow broom to sweep up the seeds. Cleanliness was next to godliness in the abbot’s book and she’d get the full purple-grape-faced wrath—and perhaps fist—if he were to burst in now, as he was wont to do on occasion. Usually when she was at her busiest. She looked at the sheets of parchments with the latest orders and accounts and tried to think when the best time to approach Lord Boschaud would be. The payments were due soon—along with the taxes to the royal court—and who knew when he would next take his mounts to battles, jousts and bloody tourneys in the north? She really didn’t have time for this today—not when there was a banquet to prepare.

  She started to smile. But if not today, then when?

  Artemisia popped a few of the sugared seeds into her mouth and sucked as she contemplated her dilemma. Her mind buzzed from the sugar and she started crunching the toasted seeds between her teeth to release the citron flavour. The seeds would improve her breath and calm the nervous humours churning deep in her belly. She should tell Emmeline and Hildegard to harvest the untamed fluffy rows of coriander planted alongside companions anise, sweet woodruff and chervil before it overtook the beds. The soft stems were scattered with arms of tiny pink buds straining to reach the sun. The herbs had run to seed early this midsummer and they’d need to put half aside for when the soil warmed next spring, and toast the others above the coals. They should have enough to see them through the autumn before they needed a sack from the épicier.

  Artemisia sucked on another seed, allowing the sugar to melt on the tip of her tongue. The sugar was infused with a slight liquorice flavour and she pictured the layout of the épicier’s tiny family market shop in the village square where brown sacks overflowing with seeds and spices of all hues of yellow and green—turmeric, coriander, mace, poppy, sandalwood, fennel, yellow and brown mustard, black pepper, cumin and caraway—jostled for space on a plain slab of oak to the side. Beside the sacks was a large locked oak box in which the de Vitriacos kept their most expensive spices, like cubeb, mastic, spikenard and sumac. Underneath, a dozen bags of sugar for the candied spices leaned against oversized sacks of ground cinnamon, anise, black pepper, salt and dried ginger. The front of the shop was a simple pop-up wooden awning, polished with beeswax until the cherrywood shone and every ripple and vein could be seen.

  Standing at the shopfront every market day beside a large set of scales was Alba de Vitriaco, Andreas’s mother, stout of shoulder and breast but with the same caramel skin and ivory teeth as her son. Alba’s eyes squinted just a little as if she was always laughing and her crow’s-feet spread deep and wide. Emmeline accompanied Artemisia through the cobblestoned alleys of the village every market day. First to the bouchier’s lane where the blood ran down the paths, past the stalls with sheep’s heads, boars and offal to their man at the far end. Here were the finest legs of hog and sides of beef in the valley. Next was the boulanger’s, to confirm supply of the fluffiest white rolls and the harder black bread for the servants and monks. Depending on the season, they may stop for capon, pheasant or quail, or visit the mushroomer for a basket of morels. Friday was the day for fishmongers and Artemisia was sure to get the finest trout and carp—never the chewy dried cod or herring brought from the far north.

  On the last market day of spring, she had the fattest of four black eels for the princely sum of four francs wrapped in cheesecloth and curled up at the bottom of her basket as though they were asleep. Lord Boschaud was touring, so these eels were for the sole pleasure of Abbot Roald. He preferred them cooked in the southern style of St Vincent, with pomegranate seeds, orange peel, lemon, rosemary, ground cloves, cardamom and ginger. But as she reached the stall and unpeeled the cloth for Alba to squeeze the flesh, Alba declared she must make torta di anguille and set about scooping dried figs, a pinch of saffron threads, pine nuts, ground ginger, cinnamon and black pepper from the sacks until she made a tiny cheesecloth parcel tied up at the corners.

  ‘Here.’ She handed it across the counter. ‘Make the pastry, cut the eel into two-fingerwidths and boil them a little with almond milk. Add two full handfuls of dark spinach mixed with raisins and a bit of sugar, and soften it with verjuice.’

  Alba dropped the spice parcel into Artemisia’s hand and continued, ‘I’ll write the recipe and send it with Andreas.’ She looked Artemisia dead in the eye and smiled.

  Emmeline coughed and turned to watch the filthy children in rags slinking behind the slow carts that were bumbling over the cobblestones, hoping for an apple, pear or loaf of bread to drop.

  The butcher’s frail wife, Madame Deniau, sauntered up to the spice stall with her squat maid following behind carrying a squalling baby.

  Artemisia and Emmeline nodded and stepped aside for her to make her purchase. Artemisia’s stomach started to contract and turn as she yearned to reach out for the chubby child and press his tiny face to her chest to dry his tears.

  Alba leaned over the counter and pinched the cheek of the baby. ‘And what is wrong with this bonnie babe?’ she asked.

  ‘The gums are as raw as a kidney. And just as bloody. Screamed the whole rotten lane down last night, he did.’ Madame Deniau sniffed and looked at the sky. ‘Anyway, I must be moving. Master Deniau would like another two sacks of the good salt by the morrow.’ She started to walk on, stepping past Artemisia and Emmeline without acknowledging them, as if they were stray dogs.

  ‘Wait, Madame Deniau—if I may.’

  The butcher’s wife turned, her nose twitching in annoyance.

  ‘One moment, Madame de Vitriaco, if you will humour me,’ said Artemisia softly.

  Alba’s eyes twinkled as she raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Madame de Vitriaco, could you please wrap some cloves, salt, turmeric and mace with a little of your dried rosemary and a few drops of the chamomile oil?’

  The quartet watched Alba bustle behind the counter and prepare a tiny bundle, trying it up in the softest linen before she leaned over and pressed it to the howling child’s gums. The noise stopped at once, replaced with loud suckling.

  ‘Merci, Madame de Vitriaco’, said the butcher’s wife with a curt nod. She turned away once more, indicating with a flick of her head for her maid to follow at once.

  Artemisia wasn’t upset—she’d had a lifetime of people not noticing her.

  Past Alba, Artemisia spied Andreas unloading his terracotta pots from his cart in the back courtyard behind their shop. Purple wisteria flowers hung low over a loggia, and espaliered lemon and lime trees climbed the walls. Balls of lavender and rosemary were tucked in each corner and dark tufts of thyme and marjoram stretched their arms wide across cobblestones. There was a wrought-iron table set for two and for a moment she imagined taking her porée—with perhaps a fresh white roll and a slice of ham—for breakfast before she lifted the awning for business.

  Artemisia caught Alba’s eye and she blushed.

  ‘That was kind of you,’ said Alba. ‘You were good with the bonny lad.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ said Artemisia, swatting the kind words away. She wasn’t used to compliments.


  ‘To you, perhaps,’ Alba said. ‘But deep down every mother wants the best for her son …’ She gave a knowing smile as an embarrassed Artemisia yanked Emmeline away by the elbow and turned the edge of her foot on a filthy wet cobblestone in her haste.

  Artemisia’s heart beat with a blend of hope and confusion as she hobbled away from the shop. Could it be that Alba would welcome the likes of Artemisia—a lowly cook—behind the shopfront and in her courtyard?

  Chapter 18

  San Sebastián, September 2014

  Pip jogged up the dim alley beside the low sandstone villa that housed Azure, thankful for her comfortable navy sneakers with inner soles for extra support. The shifts were long and it was a killer if you didn’t have good shoes. She’d learned that the hard way in her first week at the restaurant. Working full-time was a completely different kettle of fish to being a part-time kitchenhand and the shoes weren’t the only adjustments she’d had to make. As staff, she was forbidden from entering the villa via the grand oak double doors that swung open to welcome the cavalcade of paying guests that swooped in from around the world. They booked months in advance to sample the four-hundred-euro, ten-course degustation menu for lunch or dinner. Her entry to Azure was via a discreet utilitarian wooden door nestled into the stone wall at the back corner of the building.

  Pip entered, deposited her daypack in her locker, washed her hands and collected her whites—stiff from the starch—and went through the process of what she now affectionately termed ‘scrubbing in’ at a long trough. If only Megs could see her now! Hands up, clean from her elbows down, she leaned against the swinging door and entered the prep kitchen.