Vanilla Salt

Vanilla Salt Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Vanilla Salt Read Online Free PDF
Author: Ada Parellada
the present and dream up a rosier future. So tonight he’s going to make stewed calamari.
    At night, you take your time cooking, with contemplative pauses, a long way from the trials of the day, with no traffic noises coming in from the road, no telephone, no demands, just the colours of the night and the hushed darkness of its whispered words. Only his own breathing will caress the slow caramelizing of onions.
    “Just a rover, just a rover,” sings Lluís Llach as he cleans the calamari.
    He browns them in a large casserole and puts them aside on a plate. He peels and chops the onions, more than he needs. He likes chopping onions. At first they make him cry. He needs tears. They are tears that mix sorrow and onion. They are well-justified tears that can fall without restraint, without his feeling foolish because they’re cleaning out his soul.The pity of it is that tears dry up very quickly. “If you move onward in life, further than I can go…”
    He lets the onions cook as he chops three cloves of garlic – “I won’t stop being the best rover of all, or the greatest athlete strong and tall” – adds marjoram, bay and a sprig of thyme. Slow, easy does it, and now, yes – “the depth of the rivers that will not wet my feet” – a generous dash of white wine.
    He has to wait till the onion absorbs the wine. Now it’s time to have a ceremonial glass, sipping carefully to savour the suggestive acid notes of the simple Xarel·lo, shared by a casserole and a rough-mannered chef. He returns the calamari to the casserole and covers them with fish broth – “the immensity of a sky I shall never fly”.
    A few almonds, a bit of fried bread and a touch of parsley. This is the great moment, furiously grinding these ingredients in the mortar to make the picada for thickening the stew – “I’m jealous but not sad at all the luck you’ve had” – mashing the nuts, forcing them into a paste with the bread and parsley. The picada will be the imperceptible soul of the stew, dissolved in its juices. He observes its binding power, turning the liquid into a gloriously consistent sauce, which then prods at his most damaged memories. A tiny touch of salt – yes, always light on salt, because the calamari have to play the leading role in bearing the smell of ocean waves to his taste buds.
    Cooking the calamari has been balm to his muscles and mind. If only everything was so sure, so clear, so predictable. Fine raw material gives excellent results. But life stubbornly refuses to stick to a logical script. He doesn’t know how he’s going to face the future, and the present is telling the truth, overwhelming him with evidence that Antic Món is an old, decrepit dump, despite its youth.
    Annette went up to her room a while ago, immediately after their only clients that night, the three Gourmet Club diners, left. She mustbe asleep, Àlex imagines. However, walking past her door he sees light filtering through the crack. Maybe she likes sleeping with the light on. He’ll have to tell her to watch her electricity consumption. He can’t manage extra expenses and, anyway, people should sleep with the light turned off.
    Annette is tired, but also jet-lagged, so she can’t sleep. It’s hard adapting to this new time zone. She tries to entice drowsiness sitting at her computer, reading her friends’ latest blog posts, having a look to see what’s happening on Twitter and checking out her five thousand Facebook friends.
    She uses the social network to express her feelings in writing. This has been her first day’s work at Antic Món. Àlex is a cantankerous man who hardly speaks to her and won’t let her cook much. Her work in the kitchen has been peeling vegetables, stirring the odd casserole and doing a heap of washing-up. It’s taken her less than a day to catch on that her boss refuses to recognize that the restaurant’s not working. He cooks a dish as if he’s expecting fifty people to eat it. He receives his raw
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