‘Sure, thanks,’ she said. ‘See you then.’
Pip was still adjusting to the sight of the looming craggy mountain range beyond the foothills capped in limestone. She’d studied the dark shadowy outlines of the Pyrenees when she was doing her laps at the beach at Zurriola. Up close they looked twice as big. Pip wasn’t used to tilting her head back to take in a view. It was magnificent.
As she stood gazing at the mountains, the ancient chestnut trees and the trail in front, Pip wondered how her parents were. She pulled her iPhone out and snapped a selfie with the hills as background.
Hiya Dad, Heading on a hike on the pilgrim’s trail near Mendiluze today with a colleague. Going mushrooming. Will let you know how it compares. P x
Pedro followed her gaze to the mountains: ‘Pretty special, huh? I love this section of the walk, heading into the mountains at this time of year. Should find some good food, too.’ He grinned, patting his backpack. ‘Right. So before we start, if you hear shooting, don’t worry. We’ll stop and wait.’
‘What for? Someone to kill us?’ she joked.
‘No. For the shooting to stop.’ Pedro laughed. ‘It’s the pigeons. It’s September.’ Then, seeing that Pip didn’t understand, he clarified: ‘They are flying south for the winter. Nice and low—too easy. Hopefully we will have some today.’
‘Where? How? Do you have a gun?’
He gave her a look to confirm she was being ridiculous. ‘Ah, Pip. Just be patient. We have a long walk ahead. We follow these.’ He tapped a worn stone obelisk with a scallop shell carved into it, as if that explained everything.
Pedro strode off in front along a trail cut into pasture before disappearing over a solid wooden stile with another scallop shell nailed to it. They were about to walk through a field full of strange shaggy sheep with fleece to their knees.
‘Idiazabel,’ Pedro called over his shoulder, waving a hand in the direction of the sheep. Pip recognised the name of a sharp crumbly unpasteurised cheese they used at Azure. If she wanted the lowdown she was really going to have to keep up. In the field beyond the sheep she could just make out smaller pastures with semi-circular plywood shelters in each corner and an odd-looking mushroom of straw perched above. In each pasture she could make out a black and pink sow lying down, being suckled by a dozen piglets. All those legs of porc Basque dangling along the beams in San Sebastián had to come from somewhere, she guessed.
Up ahead, over the next hill, she saw two people carrying large black backpacks and carrying walking poles.
‘They’re heading to Santiago, right?’
‘Yes, some people walk about seven hundred kilometres. Some even start over the Pyrenees in France. I think it usually takes about twenty days when you join the trail on this side of the border. For some it is just a test of endurance. For others the quest is spiritual. Each pilgrim has their own reason for doing the Camino. My papa always says people walk out their answers. It is just about putting one step in front of the other. Sharing a simple meal with other travellers and a clear sleep in the evenings.’
‘That’s incredible. Maybe I should do it when I leave San Sebastián.’
Pedro stopped walking and turned back to face her. ‘But I thought, you know, after such a positive reception to Abiega Ozeano, you’d extend your stay.’ He cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow. ‘You are smart. You have real talent for this new style of cooking, Pip, because you strive for perfection. Isn’t that why you came to Spain?’
She paused to sip from her water bottle, uncertain how much to reveal. ‘I’m not sure, Pedro. I was failing in the lab’—failing everywhere—‘so I wanted to try something completely different. It turns out, I love cooking professionally—I adore it. Although,’ she added, ‘I think I prefer simple food. The science stuff at Azure just seems …’
Pip stopped. She’d already offended Pedro with her opinion of molecular gastronomy.
Pedro shrugged and they started walking side by side.
‘The truth is, when I came here, I—well, I was leaving behind a lot. I broke up with my fiancé. Jack. His name is Jack.’ She took a swig from her water bottle and kicked a small stone along the path. ‘But anyway, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to stay in Hobart. Well, I want to finish my doctorate eventually—I’m so close. But my lab work was stalling.’ She paused. ‘You know when I had those few days off last week, I went to the IMNAC marine biology conference for a couple of days with Tom.’
Pedro frowned. ‘The fat Canadian guy we met at the bar?’
A little harsh. ‘Tom can be a bit of a clown, but he’s a brilliant scientist. He’s always been a strong supporter of my research. Anyway, he called last night and he’s arranged for a secondment in Paris.’
Pedro shook his head in confusion. ‘I don’t understand. I thought after the presentation of your dish you were celebrating. That you had decided you wanted to be a chef. Hundreds of people write every week wanting to wash dishes at Azure. For free. And you are going to throw this opportunity away? You don’t want to stay in Spain?’
She took a deep breath and glanced at the overcast sky as darkening clouds skated past. Why did every man she liked—especially the darned handsome ones—seem to think they knew what was best for her? Pip replied with a tight smile, ‘Well, I do. But I also want to finish my PhD. It’s taking forever. I can do some research in France and Tom has arranged for someone to be my co-supervisor. It’s an amazing opportunity. I’ll be based at the National Museum of Natural History, which means I’ll have access to the full benthic invertebrate archives. The shell collections, literature databases—apparently the resources are unbelievable. There’s datasets on temperature and other environmental tolerances of Varicorbula—I mean, the European clam. Who knows what I’ll find?’
‘The benth-what?’
‘The invertebrates that live in the sediment of the tidal mudflats. But I’m looking at the ones that are not from Tasmania. Those that have moved in and threaten the local environment.’
‘Of course. Now I know why you attack your pulpo with a vengeance. It is an imposter!’ He laughed, but there was an irritated edge to his voice.
‘Well, pulpo are probably indigenous to this region, so the octopus is fine. I have no idea what’s invaded the Bay of Biscay—other than a whole lot of plastic.’ She gave him a pointed look.
Pedro nodded, conceding. ‘I went once to that museum, as a kid,’ he remarked. ‘It’s in the middle of acres of very beautiful gardens. Jardin des Plantes. I remember a huge entrance hall, several storeys high. It had a glass dome ceiling.’ He waved his arms to indicate an extravagant space. ‘Anyway, along the middle of this hall was a procession of wild animals. Stuffed animals. They were in pairs, like they were being loaded onto the ark.’ Pedro scrunched his nose up. ‘There was a giraffe in the middle, looming over them all with huge black eyes. At the front was an elephant with long tusks, flanked by a tiger that looked ready to pounce. Behind the giraffe, all these bears and penguins. It was—how do you say?—creepy.’
‘What was creepy? It was just dead animals, like the ones you chop up every day.’ Pip was panting now. The sweep of the hills was constant and there seemed to be more ups than downs.
‘I have no problem with death; my father was a butcher. It was the pretence. That they were still alive.’ He shrugged and took a sip of water. ‘But you know, I was only about eight. You do not understand that kind of pretence when you are eight, perhaps.’
Did you ever? Pip wondered.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘it’s one of the best research facilities in the world. The maritime section is unbelievable. The resources. I mean, we don’t have anything like that in Australia.’
Pedro was expressionless.
‘While Tom was there he noticed the Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea mollusc section needed checking and electronic cataloguing. There were some inconsistencies with the database the French shared with IMAS—the institute where I researched in Hobart.’
&nbs
p; ‘I do not understand.’
‘I get a gig for three months!’ She laughed as she stepped forward, clasped Pedro’s fine hands and squeezed them. ‘Checking mollusc records and finishing my doctorate. I’ve been fiddling with the data on my laptop since I went to that conference with Tom and I think I have pinpointed some key patterns. I was so strung out back in Tasmania I couldn’t see where I needed to go. But now I can. I’m going to nail it—at least, I hope so,’ Pip said a little sheepishly as she dropped his hands.
Pedro nodded in silence and upped the pace. The dirt path ahead was thinning and they had to walk single file. The sun had burned off the mist and she was warming up—it felt beautiful on her back. The hills were so quiet compared with the all-night festivities of San Sebastián. Save for the bleats of a few sheep, the only noise was the crunch of their footfall on the path.
They walked past orchards of apples, rows of gnarly trees with yellowing leaves and branches pruned low for easy picking. In the corner of each orchard stood massive wooden cider barrels the height of a house. Every now and again they would walk past fields with two or three large domes that looked like straw yurts sitting in a corner. Pedro explained this was how the locals stored their hay for the long winters, secured with a simple pole through the middle and a series of sharpened poles shaped like oversized nails, punched horizontally to secure the straw in place. Pip thought they looked a little like the frightening Banksia Men from her favourite childhood story, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.
Pedro squinted, raised his arms and pointed to a dark forested area on a distant hill with a cluster of square white houses topped with sloping terracotta roofs. ‘That’s where we will finish.’
‘It’s so pretty. Are you sure that’s not snow?’ she asked, squinting ahead. She could see sun glinting off the rock cliffs.
Pedro laughed. ‘Come on. We’ve a lot to do before we get there.’
Every kilometre or so, Pedro would stop and lead her off the path into a wood of oak or beech to point out the tiny new growth of the onddo—one of the porcini family. She was surprised to discover the most precious fungi—the copper-tinted onddo beltza—was almost the size of her foot!
‘Here, try some,’ said Pedro as he broke one in half. ‘They are early this year.’
When she looked doubtful, he ate one on the spot.
‘You can carry me to the top if I start vomiting,’ she said, laughing.
Into his backpack went some nìscalo—red pine mushrooms he ferreted out from under a windbreak—and some chanterelles she recognised from cooking at Azure. In another spot he brushed aside large thistle leaves that looked a bit like an artichoke and plucked the mushrooms sheltering underneath. After harvesting the mushrooms, Pedro then ripped the top fresh leaves of the thistle very gingerly and stuffed them into the backpack too, explaining they would make a delicious soup. And so the afternoon went on as the sun crept higher.
They climbed further and further, passing a village until they came to a small stone villa. Instead of going in the front door, Pedro took her hand and tugged her around the back of the building, where there was a series of stables. Instead of horses, though, each stall was filled with neat woodpiles. Pedro swung his backpack onto the ground and Pip dropped her own.
As she stepped closer to the stalls, she was struck by the irregularity of the piles. Each seemed to be made of a different wood. Some were thick like traditional split hardwood, others slim grey branches. In one stall Pip recognised the mottled silver bark of young chestnut branches and for the second time that day she missed her parents. She admired the twisted branches of grapevines and instantly thought of Jack. How was he doing in Italy? Was he missing her at all? Did he ever wonder if breaking up was a mistake? She closed her eyes for a few seconds. She needed to focus.
Pedro pointed at each stall in turn. ‘Oak, chestnut, apple wood, pear, and this is the cherry. This lot here’—he waved his hand at some dark wood—‘this is from an old orange grove up the hill a bit. And this birch, very rare, is used sparingly.’
Pip’s puzzlement must have been obvious, as he laughed.
‘For cooking the meat. Here they use a different wood to complement the flavour of the meat. Now the pigeon is in season, he will only use the apple. For beef, depending on the cut, he may like the sweetness of the chestnut or the strong tannins of the oak. A strong wood for a strong muscle. For the salmon fillets, I think the orange wood is the best. Not too overpowering. And the salmon roe,’ he said with a wink, ‘you shall have to wait and try.’
‘Salmon roe? Are you saying they barbecue fish eggs here? Sounds a bit, um, strange.’
Pedro laughed again and shook his head at Pip. ‘Not barbecue—asador.’
‘Right,’ said Pip slowly, hoping that Pedro didn’t catch on that she had zero idea of what he was talking about.
‘They make the charcoals from the different woods, and then use the charcoal to smoke the meat. Just smoke, a good olive oil and maybe a few herbs. Which reminds me …’ He bent down and picked up his backpack, urging Pip to do the same.
Pip joked, ‘I wonder what eucalyptus would be matched with?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Pedro screwed up his nose. ‘I have only smelled the oil. I’m not sure you could cook with that.’ He could be so earnest.
‘Um, yeah, it may be a bit strong. But maybe a fillet of kangaroo, or wallaby. Might be a bit too strong with wallaby, but one of the wattles—acacias—might work.’
Pedro smiled. ‘Yes, I’ve heard kangaroo is good. Do you eat it?’
‘Well, not often. We should eat more roo than we do.’
Pedro looked confused. ‘They are wild, no? You don’t farm them.’
‘Exactly. Eating roo is like eating your local boar, or the pigeons. Sometimes their population reaches plague proportions and they have to cull—kill them. Why not eat them?’
‘I see. Why not indeed? What does it taste like?’
‘A little like venison but more earthy. I actually use wallaby mince in my ragout. It’s sweeter. Not quite as tough as the roo.’ ‘I guess all that jumping makes for big chewy muscles,’ said Pedro with a chuckle as he touched her elbow and steered her inside a tiny stone lean-to tacked onto the back of a large white villa. ‘I think perhaps you have the heart of a Basque. Come, there’s someone I want you to meet.’
Pip could feel Pedro’s warm hand on the small of her back as he ushered her through the door towards the smell of smoke and charcoal. She was amazed to see the line-up of five impeccable stainless-steel barbecues with a line of extraction fans along the far wall. Between these two planes was a series of complicated systems of pulleys and ropes with grill plates and mesh nets tilted at various angles. It looked far more like the rigging of a racing yacht than a restaurant kitchen. Along the other side of the room ran a bank of new fridges with glass doors and there was a simple stainless-steel bench running down the middle of the room with a dozen pigeons lined up in a row, fluffy brown feathers intact and heads tucked under wings. Lunch.
‘Papa!’
‘Pedro!’ A rotund man with silver hair and a Charlie Chaplin moustache wrapped his arms around his son, kissing him on both cheeks. Then the older man stepped back, looked him up and down, and gave Pedro a poke in the abs. Pip wanted to feel those abs too.
Pedro took off his backpack and fished out large clumps of thyme, oregano and the damp bag of mushrooms. ‘Here, Papa, take these. And let me introduce you to my friend Pip. She’s the Australian stagier at Azure I told you about. The scientist. Pip, I’d like you to meet my father and the second-best cook I know—Telmo.’
‘Phht.’ Telmo shook his head, tilted it sideways and beamed at Pip. She could see where Pedro had got his charm. ‘Scientist, eh? What do you make of Eduardo and Azure?’
‘It’s incredible. I’d never thought of those textures, those techniques. It’s nuts where he gets his flavour combinations. It’s art, really.’
‘Phht.’ Telmo whistled again between his teeth and turned
to adjust some rigging and flip a piece of salmon closer to a griller. ‘Art. Science. Call it what you want. But it’s bringing people back to the region. Producers and craftsmen have work. That’s important. I say no more.’ He drizzled a touch of olive oil over the salmon and plucked a tiny bit of Pedro’s thyme and tucked it under the salmon until it started smoking.
Pip’s mouth began to water. The walk had been more difficult than she’d expected and she was starving. Telmo poked the fillet with his finger and then removed it from the grill, sliding it onto a chipped white plate to rest.
‘Okay, Papa. Do your best. She may look small, but I’ve seen her appetite.’ Pedro laughed and reached for Pip’s hand, leading her through a wooden swinging door to a small table set for two in a dim corner. Gone was the pomp and architectural flourish of Azure. Telmo’s was a humble converted stone barn with gable ceiling and terracotta flagstone floors. A huge fireplace—almost big enough for Pip to stand up in—framed with a thick oak beam burned in the other corner, giving the room a warm glow. A sleek grey cat stretched its body out flat along the bricks in front of the fire, baring a white belly asking to be scratched.
Their table was clothed with white linen and dressed with antique silver cutlery. In the centre stood a small jam jar stuffed with sprigs of rosemary and sage. Pip picked up the jar and lifted it to her nose, closing her eyes as she thought of her mother’s garden. She placed the jar gently back on the table beside a single tea light.
No sooner had she done this than Pedro nodded at the waiter in the corner and a plate with glossy pink globes of salmon roe was placed in front of her along with a basket of fresh crusty bread. Beside it was a tiny dish of butter and another of large cream salt flakes.
Pedro lifted his glass tumbler to clink with hers.
The Midsummer Garden Page 15