Zimmer: Prosecco & Palegg & the Most Perfect of Days...

13

Looking forward to the welcome distraction of having Renate over for lunch, there was little time to dilly dally on this Sunday morning. Having meant to make the bread and the soup at least the day before, but finding herself far too emotionally exhausted to attempt anything in the kitchen, Amelia had to get cracking on the spread she’d be serving up.

First she showered and got dressed in the clothes from the day before crumbled on the floor as they were and rushed out the door, downing her first espresso in one shot. She would need to get some extra ingredients in town for the day she had planned ahead.

Finally back home, with everything at hand, she turned the pages to consult Bellamy’s recipe for the first order of the day.

Chilled Cucumber Soup

So much a fan of tzatziki as I am, I am equally a fan of a refreshing cold soup on a balmy day. It’s also the perfect recipe to prepare ahead for a dinner party. So this particular recipe ticks all of the culinary boxes for me, and is equally highly nutritious owing to the cucumbers rich as they are in vitamins B and C. So really, what more of an excuse could you ask for? Although this particular recipe can accommodate six hungry mouths as a starter, I usually prepare a full batch no matter if I’m dining for one, or two, or three, or four... The more for me later in the week to enjoy and savour in the warmer months!

Amelia scanned the ingredients preparing her counter in the kitchen with everything she would need at hand, as she was still a little sleepy and waiting for the morning’s espresso to kick in. To help aid her in her quest for the morning, she dug out one of her grandfather’s old Nat King Cole albums and set it up on the stereo. There. Now she was ready.

1 large cucumber

250g Greek yoghurt

125ml cream

1 clove of garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

50g walnuts, chopped

Following the recipe’s instructions, first Amelia peeled the cucumber and diced it into cubes. Placing them on a flat dish she sprinkled them with salt to draw out any excess water and to leave standing for half an hour before she would have to rinse them off in a colander. It was just what she needed, just enough time for that second espresso of the morning to come up for air and kickstart her back into action.

One espresso in the courtyard and the cucumber rinsed off, it was time to blend the yoghurt with the cream, then to add the crushed garlic, and olive oil and vinegar with some seasoning. Folding half of the walnuts and the cucumber in, it was then time to blitz it all together, saving the rest of the chopped walnuts for garnishing later. In the refrigerator it went to chill for a couple of hours and it was on to the bread.

Icelandic Rye Bread (Rúgbraud or Rugbrød)

The recipe for this dense but delicious, mildly sweet and hearty rye bread was given to me by a dear friend. It is ubiquitous in Iceland and traditionally served in very thin slices with smoked, cured, or pickled toppings. No need to knead, this is baking at its simplest. Just mix, bake and enjoy with a bevy of toppings or even with a smear of butter and you will not be disappointed.

4 ½ cups of medium rye flour

2 teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon of baking powder

¾ teaspoon of baking soda

2 cups of buttermilk

½ cup of honey

½ cup of molasses

First she preheated the oven to 150C. Next, she sieved and mixed the dry ingredients, while in a second she combined the wet ingredients. Finally, she mixed them altogether for her bread dough. Into the preheated oven it went to bake for 2 hours while she moved onto the next phase of Bellamy’s recipe.

The Perfect Pålegg (or Pickled Gooseberries with Mackerel)

Pålegg is Norwegian for anything and everything you can put on a sandwich and I have to say this pickle is an absolute favourite of mine when accompanied by an ever faithful slice of dense and wholesome rye bread. The gooseberries remain crunchy in this piquant accompaniment and need no longer than a few hours in the pickling liquor. That said, they will last for several days after.

Amelia dutifully peeled the two red onions and diced them into thin rings, placing them into a bowl. She topped and tailed the gooseberries and added them to the onions. Next came the mustard seeds and the peppercorns and both the white wine vinegar and malt vinegar with a teaspoon of salt. She set a smaller bowl into a larger bowl filled with ice and carefully removed the skin from the fish that had been deboned by the fishmonger, cutting them into small diced cubes and into the chilled bowl they went. Dicing the radishes into thin discs, she added them to the cubed fish along with two tablespoons of chopped dill and some seasoning. She stirred lightly with a fork, just enough to combine all the elements, ready to be served on a chilled plate for lunch shortly with the pickled gooseberries and her Icelandic rye bread.

It was another beautiful Spring day, perfect for dining on the patio table in the slowly thriving courtyard Amelia was pleased to find. An unprecedented warm spell for early September. Culinary duties for the morning done and dusted, she removed her apron and hung it up, before changing quickly into her sequined, cropped blouse and high-waisted denims. Renate seemed the punctual sort and as such, glancing at the clock, she would be arriving any minute.

No sooner had she looked at the clock, when the doorbell rang. Amelia was quick to answer it, Ailuros at her heels having been drawn out of hiding by the fuss.

Ever the picture of perfection, Renate was turned out in a flowing wraparound black dress with billowing sleeves and beige Chanel slingblacks with black pointed toes.

“Dahling! You look simply charming!” She kissed Amelia on each cheek before handing over a couple of chilled bottles of prosecco. Leading her out onto the courtyard, Amelia seated her guest before returning inside to the kitchen to grab an ice bucket and a couple of flutes for the prosecco.

“Oh but dahling, your courtyard is looking so lovely. This is something magical is it not? That carving... Most excellent!”

“My mother carved that,” Amelia smiled, proud to have it with her, in her home again, a testament to her late mother’s vast talents.

“Well, she was an immensely talented woman, that is for certain! It must be quite emotional to have it with you, not so?”

“It felt so yesterday, I have to admit. To confront the past like that. But today, today it makes my heart glad. It’s what she would have wanted. If anything, I feel sad that I left it for so long unattended to and abandoned in an old garage.”

“Mmm, yes,” Renate nodded. “It can be so with grief though and we must not be too hard on ourselves. For so long, I could not let go of my Fritz’s things... In his wardrobe. It all just sat there, folded and untouched. Like a final goodbye, a last, how do you say, hurdle, that I could not overcome. But when you are ready to do what you know you need to do, then you do it, and such is life. We cannot rush these things. They are beyond us. Grief can take so many different shapes and you cannot force it to hurry along. Grief is stubborn like that.

“I fell into a very deep depression when I lost my Fritz. I struggled to get out of bed. To brush my teeth, comb my hair. Those everyday things we so take for granted. A dear friend came for tea and gave me a purple orchid. It was such a strange thing of solace, ever by my bedside, flowering in spite of me. Serving to remind me that all things bloom again with time. So now, I take great heart in the smaller rituals of life. In caring for my little shop and caring for myself. In cleaning my home. In picking up flowers from the florist. In trying to keep my Fritz’s garden as he would’ve wanted it, as best as I can. It is not a perfect science. But rather an, uh, imperfect art. Some days are better than others. That goes without saying. But you will find your way. Your own special way. For you. You will be the master of your own destiny, just you wait. I have a knack for these things, and I can tell this about you.” She tapped her finger to her nose and smiled.

“I hope so. I truly do.”

Amelia felt inspired by Renate’s generous and comforting words, having more faith in her than she even felt in herself. And yet, there was something so finite always, so sage-like, in the way Renate spoke, who was she to disagree?

“Are you ready for lunch? It’s all ready whenever you are.”

“Oh dahling, yes, I think that wise before these bubbles go straight to my head!”

Amelia brought out the first course of chilled cucumber and walnut soup, with the addition of the Icelandic rye bread and a couple of side plates and some farm butter she’d picked up at the local market earlier. With one bite of the bread, Renate closed her eyes and moaned in satisfaction.

“Amelia! This rye bread is marvellous... I have not had such a delicious rye since I last left my home country for these sunny shores. Truly, truly delectable. That hint of honey... Mmm... So subtle in its sweetness on the palate when you least expect it. And a perfect accompaniment to this soup. You, my dear, are truly a good hostess. Every time you feed me, you whisk me away to such fond, fond memories almost all but forgotten! And every time I am in your home it is like a homecoming all over again... Hah!” Renate giggled like a little school girl, her face instantly lit up, and clapped her hands in sheer delight.

Soup bowls emptied, it was time for the fish tartare and gooseberry pickle. This time, Renate moaned and groaned with bliss with each and every bite, barely a word from her, her flute of prosecco all but untouched.

Amelia loved to watch this transfiguration in people when they ate. It was perhaps one of greatest newfound joys since she had embarked on this little culinary adventure of hers. It reminded her of Tal feasting on her picnic spread on that beautiful Autumn day, the way he ate with his hands, gesturing in grand strokes in between nibbles, with such a naive and child-like ease.

Wasn’t it so like a gift? To have others take such pleasure in something you prepared with your own two hands from scratch. Could there be any greater reward in this life she wondered. Perhaps. Perhaps. But surely none so easily won as this.

Plates all but licked clean yet again, Amelia cleared the table and served up an altogether effortless though no less luscious dessert of vanilla ice-cream affogato, putting her new espresso maker to good use on what was about to become a lazy Sunday indeed.

Watching Renate eat her ice-cream after lunch treat, Amelia couldn’t help but wonder the sort of child Renate had once been. She was such an elegant and graceful woman, it seemed so peculiar in a way to imagine her as a child once upon a time. And yet, this afternoon, Amelia had glimpsed a different side of her. A gentle and innocent sweetness to her. Something of at least the young woman she was all those years ago. Young and in love.

“How did you meet Fritz?” Amelia suddenly asked, wondering seconds later if that wasn’t impertinent of her. But Renate seemed nonplussed.

She smiled a wistful smile and then spoke. “Oh, we met on a train. Cheeky devil that he was. I had just been to the cinema to see a film with my friends when travelling back by train he approached me out of the blue. He wanted his friend to go with him to a dance, but first had to secure a dance partner for the friend. He asked if I would accompany his friend that night. I don’t know why but perhaps it was his natural charm and I said yes, that I would go. Later at the dance, Fritz decided at some point that he preferred me to his own dance partner and asked me out on a picnic the very next day. All fair in love and war. And the rest, as they say, is history. Forty good years we had, him and I.”

Amelia thought to herself how love stories from that bygone era always sounded so grandly romantic. Trains and dance halls and chance encounters between strangers. It seemed a true love story that much was plain.

“Sounds like he was quite the catch,” she teased Renate.

“Well,” Renate flashed her an uncharacteristic grin. “Let’s just say I myself had my fair share of suitors back then.” Amelia noticed then that Renate had an almost imperceptible gap between her two front teeth, making her grin appear almost impish. “But enough about me and all my silly shenanigans in days long gone by. What do you say to that second bottle of prosecco, eh?”

Just like that, a little pickled herself, she sensed an abounding camaraderie with Renate, the making of a true friendship and she had to agree, a good reason to celebrate with a little more bubbly while they gabbed away over everything and nothing in particular as she imagined friends were wont to do.

Feeling completely laid back, she surveyed the scene.

Her new courtyard of a garden and the dozing feline in the corner enjoying the dappled light beneath the river indigo and the cool of the stone work.

How far she had come, she marvelled in this moment. How daunting that to do list had seemed at first and now, with only a little elbow grease and some effort, how closer she was to fulfilling it. But something in her was still clawing away, something she had felt the day before, opening the gift from her late mother. A yearning deep down inside that was yet to be quenched. But that was a matter for another Amelia, another day.

For today, it was as perfect a day as she could ever have asked for, and one she could not even have imagined in her life before, before that fateful list was scribed, and who was she to disagree in the face of such perfection?

(If you're too eager to wait for the next installment you can order Zimmer here: https://www.amazon.com.au/Zimmer-Jocelyn-Fryer-ebook/dp/B09BCTYG9T)

Della Vite Prosecco Superiore