CHEF'S SPECIAL
I couldn’t quite make out what the unusual taste was. My newly married hostess had managed a fairly good meal so far. But I was sure there was a clever culinary fillip that had been given to this otherwise plain apple pie and cream. Suddenly it came to me what the taste was. As I blurted it out I realised, sadly too late, that silence would have been the wiser course.
“Dusting the pie with salt certainly gives it a very distinctive taste!”
My mother was a good traditional cook who only loathed being pregnant more than she loathed cooking. This was understandable but bad news when you had six kids. My three sisters followed after my mother, so being the middle boy I learnt to shop and cook. My rock cakes were the first to win me prizes, then my cheese scones... and soon I grew to like the kudos of being a “good cook” - women would ask for my “Athenian Mince” recipe and I began to collect cookery books.
I suppose I used my skills as a counter attack to that most infuriating of all comments made to single men: “How do you manage about cooking and so on...” I would comment knowledgably on the proportions of herbs used in dishes when I was out for meals. I added a new joke to my Best Man speech (given 19 times to date) about the groom finding his bride-to-be in tears, and how she explains that she baked him a pie for tea, but the dog ate it, and how he says sympathetically, “never mind. I’ll buy you another dog.” And I hated anyone else in my kitchen. And I became intimidating and obnoxious.
Well, back to my newly wed hostess who dusted the apple pie with salt. It’s a mistake that’s easy to make - all those big earthen jars that you get for wedding presents that look the same, the anxiety of cooking for guests, lack of sleep...
My hostess was distraught, her husband laughed and said he’d thought the cream must be off but decided to keep quiet unless I noticed; and I blushed and wished I could have turned into a pillar of salt.
The lesson I learned that evening was to change not only my attitude to cooking but the way I handled all knowledge. You do not always have to say all that you know; or always have to correct others when they speak or act in error - whether too much oregano or a slightly wonky doctrine of prayer. Affirming others in what they do right, and waiting till they ask for your help or opinion is generally a surer recipe for building one another up in love.
Woman Alive monthly column
