Just a Taste: Ch. 3

This latest chapter focuses on a scene between Ellena and her mother, and the scene where Ellena first attempts to cook again in the kitchen. It's pretty short, but I didn't want to do more than these two scenes in a single chapter. Any comments/suggestions are welcome, I don't really have anything specific to ask about, except maybe if there are any parts that you feel need to be expanded upon within the context of the scenes?  I'm looking forward to this blog continuing on and becoming a sort of workshop forum for us all!


                                                                            Chapter 3

As I stepped inside the mudroom through the garage, I could hear my mother murmuring something to herself in the kitchen.  I sat down on the bench underneath the coat hooks to slip off my tennis shoes, straining my neck to listen and try to make out what my mother was saying.  After listening for a confused second more I realized she wasn’t speaking any sort of language I understood.
I came around the corner into the kitchen to find her sitting at the bar-top counter with her nose squinting two inches from the pages of a thick manual-looking book.  The cellphone she held close to her ear spoke in an automatic voice, “O zi buna.”
“O zi buna,” my mother repeated slowly, her brow crinkling deeper.
“Mom?”
“Oh, hi honey!” Her face relaxed into a smile. “Look, look, listen – o zi buna.  That means ‘have a nice day’ in Romanian.  Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?” Before I could reply she dipped her nose back into the pages, her long dark hair spilling off over one shoulder.
I grabbed an apple from the bowl by the fridge and took a bite, “Why are you speaking Romanian?”
“I met this woman at the farmer’s market this morning, and she was selling these poppy seed pretzel things – called covrigi, I think – and, anyway, long story short, she moved here from Romania a long while ago, and I thought that was just so interesting.  I mean, you never really hear about Romania, do you?  So, voila!”  She lifted her phone and language book from the counter into the air in triumph.
“Ah. I see.” I took another bite of my apple and chewed.
“Come on, Ellena, I’m learning a useful skill.  Being bilingual is a desirable trait, you know.”
“That’s what you said about learning to fold origami and read astrological charts, too,” I said with a mouthful of apple.  She pursed her lips and opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but closed it and looked down at her book instead.
This is what my mom did now.  In the month since we’d had to close Augustine’s she’d picked up a new hobby every week or so.  First, there was origami.  “Something to do with my hands, keep busy,” she’d said.  Then, there was astrology, where I was greeted each morning with my horoscope for the day.  Where, each eye roll or complaint of a stomach ache would be dismissed as a conflicted moon in transit.  Or something like that.  Now, she was apparently on to speaking Romanian.  I knew she needed to fill her time without Augustine’s there to occupy her every hour, but it was like she was collecting them.  Like she was grasping desperately to the excitement of something new to forget what we all still really felt.  Though, after my experience with Quichey Keen today I couldn’t really fault her for that.
“Well, what were you doing all day?” my mom asked, thumbing through what I assumed was a language learning app on her phone.
“Um…actually I was covering Mable’s shift at that food truck she’s been working at.” I twisted at the stem of the apple core in my hands, looking up at in time to see my mother’s shoulders stiffen.
“Food truck?”
I took a quick, deep breath, “Yeah, it’s called Quichey Keen. They do breakfast/brunch type food. Get it?”
“Hmm.”  She didn’t look at me.  “That’s interesting.  You know, Mable’s stepdad was just telling me the other day that he could use some help down at the marina.  Maybe you should look into that?”
I wasn’t surprised at her aversion to my food truck encounter.  It’d been just as hard for her to face a kitchen after Dad.  I don’t think we’ve eaten anything at home but Chinese takeout and raw fruit and veggies, especially since Augustine’s closed and leftovers from each night were no longer filling our fridge.  But, it was different for her.  She’d never really been a cook, always more of a front-of-the-house manager type, but I knew the kitchen is where it was hardest to face that he was really gone.  So all I said was, “Yeah, maybe.”

That night I couldn’t sleep.  My mind kept tossing around what Coen had said about me maybe going back to work at Quichey Keen again.  The thought of returning to the chaos, the smell and sizzle of the stove, the constant bumping of elbows…to Coen’s scruffy jaw and wood smoke-scented flannel…made a heat swell in my chest and my heart beat faster.  I couldn’t decipher if it was out of anxiety or excitement.  Either way, there was no falling asleep.
After staring at the off-balance swaying of my ceiling fan for a solid ten minutes, I threw back my thin quilt and got out of bed.  Using the flashlight on my phone I rummaged through the clothes in my closet and drug out the plastic dollhouse, careful not to scrape against the wood floors too loudly.  Holding my phone between my teeth I unlatched the front of the house and retrieved my dad’s tattered recipe book.
I crept downstairs into the kitchen, sure avoid the noisy steps so I wouldn’t wake up my mom, with the recipe book hugged tight to my chest.  I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I just felt like I had to be in the kitchen.  Even if I couldn’t get used to the thought of my dad not standing there beside me, I at least had his recipe book to sit on the counter next to me.
I aligned the open book with the edges of the stove and countertop, making sure no extra corners of pages were sticking out at risk to be burnt by the gas range.  I flipped to the last entry, the Spiced Chai Grits, that was left unmarked – its success seemingly undecided by my dad.   I ran my fingertip down the page, reading each ingredient and measurement carefully, feeling the indentations the pen had made pressing through the previous page.

Spiced Chai Grits
Ingredients:
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Kosher salt
Black pepper
8 chai tea bags
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup stone ground grits
½ cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon lemon zest
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I read the list over and over again before realizing my hands were white knuckled on the countertop’s edge.  I let go and shook out my hands on the way to the pantry.  Turning on the light, I surveyed the dusty shelves of products most likely expired in their neglect before gathering the grits recipe’s dry ingredients.  I dumped the arm full of items on the kitchen island across from the stove, then up-righted each one next to one another in a neat line.  I went to the fridge and pulled out a small carton of heavy cream, miraculously hanging on to the thread of its expiration date, and a small round lemon my mother had probably just picked up at the farmers market.  I set these in line with the rest of the ingredients, then stepped back to survey my selection.  I could do this.  Just measure out each part and boil some water, that’s really all there was to it, right?  I opened the bottom cabinet of the island and reached for a medium sized stainless steel pot.  I lifted it from its nest amongst the other cookware, felt its familiar yet strange weight in my palm.
The first time I remembered being in the kitchen with my dad I was too little to lift anything heavier than a wooden spoon. I would try to hand him pots and skillets my small self had retrieved from the depths of the cabinets, but my scrawny 4-year-old arms were no match for the weight of cast iron or steel.  He’d always let me attempt the hand-off, laugh at my scrunched, strained face, then pick me up and place me on his hip or the countertop before he got to work.  He’d joked that I would never be able to work a manual can opener or open a jar of artichoke hearts.  Proving him wrong years later would always be stand out moments of pride for me.
I filled the pot with the right amount of water from the sink faucet and placed it on the front right eye of the stove range.  I looked at it, looked at the knob that would kick on the gas flames, looked to the recipe book open beside me.  I felt the resolve within me crack, splintering from my chest and stomach out through my fingers and down into my ankles.  I picked up the pot again, walked it to the sink, and poured the water down the drain, placing it upside down on the drying rack.  I scooped up the ingredients on the island and put them back in their respective places in the pantry and fridge, one at a time.  I ran my hand over the open page of the recipe book. This was a good start, but Spice Chai Grits would have to wait a little longer.