Words: Severine Bernard (she/her)
It’s sometime mid March and today, the first of my many summer salads is in the kitchen. I’m getting ahead of myself, I know, but like everyone else in Scotland I can never resist the first glimpses of spring. I’ve put away my big coat. The first crocuses have been spotted. Yesterday, the blackbirds were chirping their ode to warm evenings from the telephone line when I returned home from work. So, I knew that today would be the perfect day to start making my salad.
Every time I make a salad, I start with the cucumbers. Slicing and salting them, leaving the liquid to ooze out before draining. If you can recall, it’s a tip you taught me last summer. One which the chef from the job you quit showed you. He told you, who told me, that it made them crunchier. So, these days I begin with the cucumbers, before moving onto the tomatoes, which I still prepare the way my mum does.
Then, I make my croutons. I take the stale bread down from the cupboard – days old and only really suitable for these sorts of things – and tear it into chunks with my hands. Next comes a drizzle of olive oil, then the flaky salt and rosemary from the allotment down the road. I still take the same route we used as children. Can you recall the evenings when, on our way home from school, we’d squeeze through that gap in the fence and run amongst the raspberry canes? Stripping the most sun-kissed bushes first with our greedy, grasping fingers, stuffing our cheeks until the juice ran down our chins. Back then, everything grew in abundance. One summer, nourished on the first fruits of adolescence, you shot up six inches, and I grew four. These days, I just pick the rosemary.
After which comes the other herbs, the shallots, and the olives. I treat myself to the good ones. I’d rather abstain entirely than eat horrid sour olives, so several times a year, I buy myself the nice ones which I finish in three days. I grow the herbs in pots on the windowsill during the colder months, and on a wire rack, leaning against the garden wall in the summertime. Perhaps I’ll put them out in a few weeks, although I’ll have to make sure the worst of the rain has passed first.
Last are the anchovies, because you told me to always chop my ingredients from mild to strongest. That way I won’t have basil which tastes like garlic, or cucumber that tastes like onions. Once I argued it was pointless, since it was all going in the same bowl anyway. You replied that it was the principle of the thing and danced me round the room until, laughing, I relented. So I make the dressing in a separate bowl, whisking together extra virgin olive oil, shallots, anchovies, and red wine vinegar. Washing up as I go, because you could never stand plates piled in the sink at the end.
I appreciated your quiet cleanness. It made me feel safe and clear-headed. Sometimes, though, the neatness was suffocating. The coffee granules on the counter demanded a sharp tone, cigarette ashes a reproachful glance. You couldn’t stand the way I filled the space with crumbs of myself, my half-washed bowls and tea stained mugs. My lipstick on the glass, evidence of an imperfect existence.
Here, on this paper, everything is sterile, bleached out, and oh-so-neat. In the real world, however, my cheap MDF drawers are falling apart, my pictures hang crooked, and I still ignore the cups in my room for days on end (much to the annoyance of my new flatmates). The salad sits to the side. Marinating. It’s the same as the one I brought to your parents house and clutched at, white-knuckled, the first time I knocked on your door as more than a friend.
Was I really so bad? I threw away the sour milk, changed the tea towels weekly, and lit incense when guests came over. Aren’t these things a sliding scale? Besides, my mess was evidence of adoration. Dishes in the sink from the meals I made with you in mind. Dog-eared pages of cookbooks. Your ratings scribbled on the bottom right-hand corner of each page which I recorded in small inky block capitals. Six out of ten for mushroom ragu. An eight for squash and tamarind curry. I took them with me when I left, because you told me my handwriting was messy like a boy and impossible to decipher. I bit my tongue, resolved to type out my next love letter instead.
Everything’s ready now. I can hear my guests at the door. The incense is lit, and a new tablecloth has been laid out. In a few moments I will greet them, and we will cram ourselves into every corner of my tiny kitchen. The plates will pile in the sink, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to wash them.
